Four Flights

Thursday.  I took the afternoon off work.  The weather was ok.  I went and picked up my plane from the mechanic.  The cost was twice the already-high price I had estimated.  I taxied my plane over to the old FBO (they are building a new one) at KODO.  I had flight planning from a few weeks ago.  I called 1-800-WXBRIEF and got the current weather and winds aloft.  Finished my flight planning and Josh checked it.  Then we went for a flight, did the pattern three times or so.  Winds were very light. After flying Josh said I was good to go.  I asked him a bunch of questions about coming into (and leaving) Hobbs, which is a class D airport (towered).  We topped off the fuel and I went through the startup checklist. I had all my paperwork: airport diagrams, frequencies, and my iPad with GPS for navigation.  For backup I had my sectional charts.  Not long and I took off and turned WNW for Hobbs.  The air was smooth and 45 minutes or so later and I listened to Hobbs weather, then called up Hobbs.  No problem, they gave me the expected runway.  I landed and they told me where to taxi.  I requested immediate departure from the runway I had just landed on.  Cleared, I took off and headed nearly due south for Wink, TX.  

It was hard to climb.  The little 150 is a bit underpowered.  It'd be nice to have an extra 50% and really climb.  I stayed pretty low on the way to Wink.  Near Wink I listened to their weather and found winds right for the planned runway.  Uncontrolled airport, I self-announced on the CTAF frequency and entered the patten, and landed.  Taxied to the FBO where two pilots were cleaning up a really nice turbine helicopter.  Inside I found the old man attending the airport/living in the FBO.  It was around 7 PM, sun sets a bit after 8 PM.  The old guy filled up my tanks, they only took 9.5 gallons.  I chatted with the helicopter pilot and drank a diet Coke.  The helicopter pilots were stringing high-tension power wires using the helicopter.  They told me about it a while but I saw I needed to get back to Odessa.  Taxi, back in the air, not far east to Odessa.  I could see the town long before I got there, and I was a little impatient.  Entered the pattern and landed.  Josh was there and thankfully had a pizza.  I was starving and thirsty.  

Friday morning [Holiday= Good Friday] I drove to Big Spring, TX and took my FAA Private Pilot exam at US Flight Academy.  It was much easier than I expected.  I drove home.  Debi was picking up Mary in San Antonio and then camping for a few days in New Braunfels, TX, just north of SA.  After arriving at home I got a text from Josh asking if I wanted to fly with him in a Cirrus SR22 from Midland to Borger, TX and back.  Of course I jumped at the chance.

This particular SR22 is a turbo, capable of cruising at around 250 mph TAS.  Just about an hour to Borger, which is up in the Texas panhandle.  About an hour flight.  On the way we passed over Lubbock, Amarillo, and Palo Duro Canyon.  Pretty red rock country.

In Borger we picked up our passenger and Josh took over the left seat.  It's fun to cruise along so fast up at 11,000 feet.  The way back was bumpy.  We were under the few cumulus clouds.  I started to like the SR22, which I've flown before.  Now I have about 10 hours in them, although half of that time was right seat.  Josh gave me more of an intro to the flight systems, autopilot, flight director, and engine management.

Saturday morning Josh called me.  I had just gotten out of bed.  "Hey, are you ready with your flight planning for another solo cross country?".  I told him I could be ready by noon.  I pulled out my flight planning materials and planned a trip from Odessa to Upton Co. airport in McCamey, TX, and then to Big Spring, where I had taken the FAA test the day before.  

Got to the airport and Josh said he'd waive his normal requirement to fly with me between solo x-countries, counting our SR22 flight the day before.  He checked my planning and off I went.  I felt more confident this time -- until I was in the air.  Forecast was for thunderstorms later in the day.  Took off to the north and turned west to steer clear of Midland's class C airspace, passing the airport (KODO) on my left.  Bumpy, unsettling air.  I pointed south and tried to climb to 6,000' MSL.  Bang, push, twist.  A few gusts hit my wing and pushed it up.  My hands were sweaty.  

I eventually made it to 6,000' MSL, but then began to experience updrafts of 1100+ feet per minute, followed by extended downdrafts of 200-400 fpm.  At full power, at 3,000' MSL (the approximate elevation of KODO), the Cessna 150 climbs at 500-600 fpm.  So in a downdraft at 6,000' MSL on a warm day, I can barely hold altitude, even if I go to full power.  It was unsettling and it seemed to take forever to reach the windmill-encrusted mesa that I knew was just north of McCamey.

Mesa north of McCamey, TX

Seeing the mesa, I began to descend from 6,000' down to near 4,000'.  Again in the grip of downdrafts and updrafts, I found it difficult to arrest the descent I had set up in.  Finally I cleared all the windmills and called on CTAF to Upton Co. airport, with its single little E-W runway.  No activity.  I overflew the airport to get a good look at the windsock (no weather recording here) and it was lined up more or less perfectly for runway 1-0.  It was right traffic so I turned a wide right and came in near perfectly for 1-0.  Stopped on the ground, 180'd back to the start of 1-0 and took off.  To the NE this time, toward rising terrain.  Up over the mesa, riding one mild updraft that brought me to a safe 500' AGL so I could start a gentle turn.

Leaving McCamey

Now heading NE toward Big Spring, I found myself in no-man's-land.  Big Spring can be a busy airport (but it's non-towered).  It seemed like a long way, bumping and bouncing in the air, my hands still sweating.  I rode some thermals to 5,500' MSL but then I would find myself descending again, at around 80% power, back to 5,000' and below.  Finally the GPS said I was 15 miles out of Big Spring so I listened to their weather and, 10 miles out, called to the CTAF.  Came in on 2-4, pointing approximately west.  Taxied to the FBO and found I had missed them by three minutes.  Shut down and texted Josh.  Checked my fuel and found I should've had plenty to get back to KODO.  Started up, looked up and there was an attendent/instructor there.  I shut down and he topped off my tanks, again about 9.5 gallons.

Clouds were building up, looking stormy.  Check the weather again and the light wind had shifted almost 180 degrees, such that I took off on runway 6, the exact opposite direction I had landed.  Took off toward rising terrain.  Thankfully an updraft quickly brought me up to 800' AGL, where I executed a broad left turn, over the western part of the pretty town of Big Spring.  I lined up just north of I-20 and headed west-ish toward Midland.  20 miles out I called up Midland Approach and get a squak code for their class C airspace.  They vectored me north around Midland Aipark for an approaching King Air, which I never saw.  Not long and I was cleared direct to KODO, got the weather, picked a runway (2) and landed.   It was a neat landing, because coming in I felt low, swooping over the city in left turns to base and final, then found myself quite high over the numbers (at the beginning of the runway).  Pushed down the flaps from 30 degrees to 40 and angled down for the runway, holding about 62 mph.  An agressive flare and power-off and I swooshed along a few feet off the runway, bleeding speed until I touched down at about 35 mph, feeling like a butterfly alighting on a flower.  Back-taxied on 2 and to my hangar, put up the plane and called Josh.  He was not around so I patted myself on the back and headed home.

I was pretty sure my flying for the weekend was over.  But Easter Sunday around noon, I got a text from Josh: want to round-trip to Borger again in the SR22?  Yes.  From KODO to Borger with our passenger, then back again.  We flew over Tahoka Lake, where I went last year with Sibley Nature Center when my Tacoma was brand new.  I got to thinking that with a commercial pilot's license, an IFR rating, and an SR22 school, I could fly people around in one of these.

Tahoka Lake from 11,000' MSL

Now my Private Pilot License is a few more lessons and then a check-ride away.  But I realize now it's just a license to learn, and I will still have pretty severe personal weather minimums.  Trips to Big Bend will be a big, big deal at first.  And to practice and fly IFR, I will need a different plane.

What's up?

We got another dog.  His name is Daniel.  We think he's a Chiweenie.  Anna loves him!  They are best buds and they play-fight a lot of the time.  Anna is alpha dog, and she gets a bit upset when Daniel tries to nab her beef bone.  They share food just fine, but pets not so much: Anna is very jealous of attention we give to Daniel.

One drawback of Daniel is that he pees and poops in the house.  He will only "go" on carpet or rug.  So we keep the bedroom doors closed all the time.  Still sometimes he leaves a little surprise.

I recently drove out and visited a couple of "my" drilling rigs.  At the time I had four wells drilling, but I only had daylight to visit two rigs.  At each rig there is a mudlogger team working.  Mudloggers are geologists who work at the wellsite and look at rock samples that come to the surface in drilling mud.  They also measure gas and look for oil in samples or in the mud.  This information can be very useful...  The rig above was on the TX-NM state line.  This is in one of the least populated areas of the United States.

The second rig was in a slightly more scenic spot, next to a little hill.  At this well we were collected whole core.  I surprised the mudlogger by showing up unannounced. 

A few weeks ago we had some 80-degree weather.  It seems like out here in West Texas the weather goes from Winter-like to Summer-like pretty quick.  We had frosty mornings with chilly 40 degree days and then suddenly a string of 80+ F days.  Now (early April) it seems we are pretty firmly in a summer pattern, upper 80s to 90s for highs.  Anyway, I live on the west edge of town.  There is a big field to the west of us, full of mesquite scrub and probably 100s of other plants I can't identify.  Recently they came in with a big machine and "cleared" a huge area of the mesquite.  Really only anything sticking up more than four or five inches was cut away.  What results is that you can see a bunch more of the stuff near the ground, like the flower above.

This scat was mostly hair.  Bobcat or fox scat?

One day I mowed the lawn.  Midland has now restricted watering to once per week, so it's unlikely the lawn will survive much into the real summer.  Unless we get some significant and well-spaced-out rainfall.  Trying to keep the trees alive, though.

I found out recently there is a mountain bike park in Odessa.  

 I brought the dogs to the dog park on a Monday.  I had the day off.  There were no other dogs, but Anna and Daniel had plenty of fun in the big mud puddle.  Afterward we went for a 30-min "dry off" walk in the nearby desert park behind Sibley Nature Center.

I got to fly again on the company King Air, on a short hop to Artesia, NM.

Tonight a big line of strong Thunderstorms developed in a line south of Midland, from Odessa to Abilene.  Not much rain fell north of I-20, but the storm moved slowly off to the south and looks like it dropped some precipitation onto reservoirs near San Angelo... which we in Midland rely on for about half of our water supply.

Recent newspaper article says Midland, TX has the fastest-selling homes in the country (lowest days on market).  Things continue to boom here, with more traffic every week.  More restaurants and services are opening, but they don't seem to be keeping pace with the population growth.  Debi saw an article reporting that 1,000 people per week are moving to the Midland-Odessa area.  Could it have been per month?  1,000 per week is 52,000 people per year to an area with <250,000 people.  Either way, that's pretty hardy growth.

Three Adventures, One Day

The events detailed in this blog occurred on 1/15/2012

Over three months has passed since I left you, dear readers, hanging at the end of Installment 1 of The Return of the Cessna.  Stay tuned -- there are two more installments, ending (we hope) with the safe and successful arrival of 86-Juliet at KODO in Odessa, TX.  When did Texas last see so much IFR weather?  Decades?  A century?  Before the Wright Brothers?  Thankfully for the rest of us out here in West Texas, all this weather has brought a fair amount of moisture, much of it in the form of snow -- three significant snowstorms have blown through so far this year.  On Christmas Eve I strapped on the ole XC skiis for the first time in... five years?  And did a lap through the desert.  The desert that will soon be the extension of my subdivision.  Then I have to find another desert.

With so much time passed, you know there are many adventures to write of.  Two more Cessna 150 trips, and in there a two-week trip to Spain with my hermana.  I've got a bunch of blog backlogs, going all the way back to our Memorial Day 2011 trip to the (wildly popular) Garner State Park near Leakey, TX.  That's the story where I drive Debi's CUV into a very, very large rock (ok a large boulder) late in the afternoon on Monday, Memorial Day -- in fact right as Debi was preparing to depart for Houston, over five hours away.

But let's put all that behind us right now.  Look forward to hearing stories about the past later.  Because today was really something.

It started off innocently enough, with sleeping in and trying to kick this flu-gastroenteritis-food poisoning I seem to have picked up.  Debi decided on Saturday that she wanted to visit Carlsbad Caverns and perhaps the Guadalupe Mountains, about three hours drive west of us (Midland).  She and Mary have Monday off work-school as it's MLK day.  Well I don't have it off of course.  So I came up with this scheme: they leave around 11 am and drive to Carlsbad, NM and go to the airport there.  Josh and I fly the Cessna 150 from KODO to Carlsbad, arriving around 2 PM, the same time as Debi.  Then we'd drive to Caverns, eat and come home.  The perfect storm aligned: Josh was available (with some shuffling), the weather was good (but strong westerly winds reported), Debi set off in time, etc.  I decided to head over to KODO a little early to ogle and caress 86J, and I thought, what the heck? -- I'll take my motorcycle! Now all legal, licensed, and insured, but with almost no riding skills to speak of except those picked up in my 2-day motorcycle course, I set off in black leather jacket, gloves, full helmet and boots for KODO, about 20 miles away.  My longest previous road ride was about 5 miles, on residential streets, with no one else around.

Blasting west toward Odessa at 50 mph on the 191 frontage road (Sunday - almost nil traffic), my 250 cc enduro felt like it was giving all it could, just over 5000 rpm.  The wind blasted at an equal 50 mph, in addition to my speed, heading in the opposite direction, making for what felt like a 100 mph headwind.  I crouched forward to counter the wind, and the bike wavered in the gusts.  Gradually I opened the throttle more (who knew there was more?) and brought the bike up to about 60 mph.  The wind seemed to die down a bit, so I took the next on-ramp onto 191, which is one of three divided highways between Midland and Odessa (each towns of 100,000 souls).  With the throttle wide open, I merged onto the highway and gradually saw 65, 66, 67.  Barely brushing 70, I was no longer accelerating.  The onrushing wind was brutal but I felt stable, yet I was taut, expecting any unexpected thing at any moment.  Very gradually, I relaxed, and I thought, hey this is fun!  Climbing up to an overpass, throttle still pegged, the bike slowed to 69, 68, 67, 66, 65...  Cars changed lanes to pass me, sailing slowly by like land ships passing on the left.  I find it odd that I'm looking down on the passing SUVs and pickups.  The enduro is a tall bike and the rider sits up high and straight.  I can just touch the ground on both sides on tip-toes; I need to lower the suspension one or two inches to make this a better street bike.

Pull into the airport and punch in the code, open the gate.  Now that I have a hangar here it's like I own the place.  Push open the triple sliding hangar door, planes taking off nearby, it's a busy Sunday at Schlemeyer.  Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooowwwwww, the sound of the planes hacking at the air to take off from the ground.  I stand there a few moments, in awe of this -- the fact I am about to use this machine to travel through the air to a faraway place, see an interesting sight, and fly back.  I am about to use an airplane.  Not fly around the pattern, not go on a sightseeing or training flight (although all are uses).  Actually go somewhere!  In this here, my airplane.

After a thorough preflight inspection I saunter to the FBO in the almost-70 degree sun in my leather jacket.  To the lineman (boy) behind the desk - my Cessna is sitting in front of hangar 26.  Can you pull it to the line and top it off?  Thanks. A few minutes later he is zipping up backwards on a riding lawnmower, my little white plane in tow.  Drives over to the rickety old Ford fuel truck, maybe older than my plane, and chugs over to it, fills it with 100 octane low-lead avgas.

Josh comes in via Diamond 20 from MAF.  The wind is blowing hard, gusting, and the 150 is not tied down.  I'm hanging around the tail, like I could do something if it took spontaneous flight.

Another quick preflight and we hop in, do the runup on the fly, and take off south, turn right over West Odessa and point west, into the wind.

Slowly, we move westward.  In this plane, the wind aloft can be a significant fraction of the top airspeed.  We cross all of the Delaware Basin, and I try to spot "my" rigs.  Coming into Carlsbad, no one else around.  Taxi to the FBO and tie down the plane.  Inside, Debi and Mary are watching.  Apparently they watched my landing.  I realize I've been to this airport before, in the King Air, for a visit to the BLM office located in Carlsbad.

We drop Debi's pop-up camper in the airport parking and head south to Carlsbad Caverns.  Driving up to the Caverns entrance involves going up a pretty limestone canyon, but all the vegetation is brutally burned off.  Still pretty, and when you get on top there is an expansive view from the front steps of the visitor center, making you feel like you're on top of the Permian Basin.

What luck -- today is "free day" at the Caverns.  We join one of the last tours and spend a couple hours underground.  Mary seems in a hurry to get it over with.

Debi & Mary

Poor photo of a stalagmite

After the cave we all ride to Carlsbad for some dinner.  My favorite Mex place is closed, things are often closed on Sunday night.  Finally we find a newer BBQ place and have a good meal.  Darkness falls.  Debi drives us back to the airport, drops us off and hooks onto her pop-up.  They hang around a bit and end up going to a nearby KOA-type place.  I preflight the plane and we get in.  Using my iPad, I look at an airport diagram to get re-oriented.  It is completely dark now, and the area surrounding the airport is pitch black.  After checking the winds (still from the west), I taxi to the correct runway and we line up for takeoff.  On the takeoff roll, nearly ready to leave the ground, my attention to drawn to what I can see straight ahead, and that's nothing.  Blackness.  Now, when we landed I recall seeing some significant foothills off to the west. And at this moment, we are fast approaching them (well, 70 mph or so) and climbing rather slowly... barely 500 feet per minute.  Ahead there is nothing -- no light in the sky, no shadows of mountains, no ranch light or street light.  All is darkness.  I begin to tighten up, to tense, and I scan intently just ahead of the plane's nose, waiting to see a flash of ocotillo or some rocks just before I hear a terrible crash and feel the plane jolt.  But it doesn't happen.  We continue to float serenely, with almost no sense of where we are, how high we are above the ground, or how fast we are travelling.  The little 100 hp motor continues to hum, indifferent to its altitude.  I continue to tense until I can't bear it.  Perhaps 45 seconds has passed since the wheels actually left the ground.  Gently, very gently I begin a shallow bank to the left.  We are not really high enough to turn sharply.  Turning sharply risks losing altitude.  So I turn ever so gently, hoping to balance the demands of a turn with a continuation of our climb, and we scoot over the hills as we are finally pointed south, then southeast, then east, in a slow drift like a lazy compass turning.  Now we are pointed east, with the strong wind at our backs, and we are moving away from the menace of the foothills of the Guadalupes.  Now they can't touch us.

Eastbound, home.  The wind pushes us back and we arrive back at KODO around 10 PM.  It's cold now, but after we put the airplane away I climb back on the Kawasaki and resign myself to a cold and miserable ride home.  My illness is acting up again, and I feel chills coming on.  But it's only 20 miles and I survive, with the help of a hot shower back home.

I slept in but damn, I sure made up for it.

BEG Mudrocks Conference

On Monday I fit in a rushed morning of work.  At lunchtime I hurried home and threw together clothes and supplies for a 4-day trip to Austin and Del Rio.  Then into the Tacoma for a five-hour drive to Austin.

On the way to Austin on Highway 71.  This is a very familiar route; I've driven it many times.  It's the way to Houston.  Recently I drove both ways -- from Beaumont to Midland and then back to Beaumont the following weekend, as part of the long process of returning my Cessna 150 to Midland.

Highway 71, going east.  I was surprised to see a fair amount of water in the Concho River in San Angelo.  Yes, the river was some eight feet lower than last time I saw it, just about a year ago during spring break.  But there was water, that milky blue-green water I normally associate with glacial runoff, but here in Texas that's the color of rivers before they pick up the brown of mud down across the Balcones fault zone, downstream of Dallas, Austin, or San Antonio.  Texas has a big stair step in the middle of it, and that's the Balcones.  The west side is "up" and the east side is "down".  The stair step runs through three of the four major cities in Texas.

Green, green, green.  Every mile I went toward Austin the roadsides got greener.  The weeds pressed up against the shoulder, fairly bursting with planty life-force.  Coming from brownish Midland on the Llano Estacado made it look that much more green.  The entire drive, my eyes were open in a way they weren't before.  The hills seemed more interesting and, well, more hilly.  Again this is probably due to my eyes being accustomed to the unrelenting flatness of Midland-Odessa (and Houston before that).

Into Austin, I stopped for fuel at my normal place, a Shell station on the north side of the road.  Then onwards (on 71) to the Austin airport to pick up a colleague who flew from Midland to Dallas and into Austin.  It's a five-hour drive and probably almost a 4-hour plane trip all told, so I prefer to drive it.  Picked up colleauge and got a bit lost trying to get to County Line BBQ.  After a nice drive on Barton Springs Road, we found it and had quite a good meal just before closing time.  I need to come back in the daytime to enjoy the view from the patio.

For several days I had been fighting a cold and after dinner and the long drive I was pretty beat.  I was glad to finally arrive in the area of our hotels in north Austin, near the University of Texas JJ Pickle Research center.  Sleep, up the next day for lectures all day (Tuesday).  Tuesday evening another colleauge arrived, also drove in from Midland.  Dinner at Roaring Fork steakhouse, pretty good.

Wednesday a morning of lecture then a drive to Del Rio, Texas.  Other colleagues rode in one car and I drove the Tacoma alone, down I-25 to San Antonio and then west on US90 through Hondo and Uvalde.

Driving new roads is a treat.  I get to see new things, and I love to.  I keep a map in my head of all the places I've been and roads I've driven.  From Austin to San Antonio and I-25 and then west were all new roads for me, new territory (--Ed: of course I have been to San Antonio but not via this route).  It was super green, even into Del Rio (normally thought of as a dry place).  Weather was sprinkly but the clouds broke up into scattered cumulus and the sun shone, warm day.  Getting out of the truck in Del Rio, it felt humid and almost tropical, and I immediately liked the place, it had a good, vacation-y feel to it.

Field trippers with our motor coach (Thursday a.m.)

Road cut.  Note T-shirts = warm.

Next day (Thursday) we spent the entire day looking at Eagle Ford equivalent rocks, Del Rio (formation), Austin Chalk, Boquillas.  My cabin site on my land in Big Bend, another 200 miles west, is on the Boquillas carbonates.  The day was warm and sunny with puffy clouds.  West of Del Rio is the impressive Lake Amistad, a reservoir on the Rio Grande created in the 1960s by the US and Mexico.  The lake was low but still pretty.  This was my planned destination last year (really, 2010), the day before Christmas when I was on my way to the Del Rio area with Sabkha in the Miata.  I got a late start and I ended up turning back, walked Sabkha around the 'hood.  That night she had her first seizures, two major ones, and we spent several hours at the emergency vet.  I didn't know if she'd survive the holidays, but she did, and seemed to recover.  Still, this was the beginning of a decline that led to the decision to put her down in August 2011.  So although we never made it to Lake Amistad, visiting this place made me think of Sabkha as I still often do.

Colleagues from Concho (Tom and Pat)

At lunchtime on Wednesday we visited a viewpoint along the Pecos River, looking upstream at the Pecos High Bridge, which replaced a low railroad bridge built here in the late 1800s (sorry, Google for an exact date if you want it).  Quite a pretty view, but somehow lacking.  I don't find flat-lying sedimentary rocks (especially carbonates) to be an inspiring background to anything, and I'm also very partial to Arizona.  Or at least New Mexico.  Still, it was lovely, with the bluish water and all the trees poking out above water line.  Are these trees that grow in the riverbed or are they corpses from the drowning of this area after the construction of Amistad Dam?

Pecos High Bridge on the Pecos River at confluence with the Rio Grande

Pecos with the dead (?) trees

Picnic area at Pecos River overlook

In the evening, at one of the last stops of the day, the warmness suddenly turned cool as a few puffs of cold air came up the road from the west.  On Thursday morning we woke up to cold and spitting rain.  We spent a half-day in the field.  I drove my truck so I could leave from the trip and head north out of Comstock.  But I forgot my camera at the hotel in Del Rio.  I went back for that and stopped at the Lake Amistad NRA visitor center.

Driving back to Midland was about 3.5 hours.  First up to Ozona, under I-10 (so many times I have driven east-west here on I-10, now I am ignoring it and going under it).  Then up to Big Lake (there is not one) then Rankin and into Midland.  The drive on 163 between Comstock and Ozona is very pretty, with big trees close in to the road in many places and water visible.  Closer to Ozona is a large burned area.  Dead junipers dot the hillsides (dead from drought).  North of I-10 seems hillier than I remember.  It is grey and continues to mist/rain all the way into Midland.  Everything seems green and happy from the rain, although we are getting nowhere near enough to reverse our drought conditions, nevermind fill up the reservoirs we rely on for water, up on the Llano Estacado.

Airplane

Debi's grandma passed away.  She decided to go to England for the funeral.  She would be gone for one week. I would watch Mary during that week.  That week is now.  Debi is one her way back and will be home sometime this evening.

Hannah, all-American baby, being exceptionally cute

More of same

Debi left on Saturday.  Weekend one, we went to look at my airplane with Ben, Tonia and their kids.  The airplane is at Schlemeyer Airport in Odessa, TX.  The kids loved sitting in the plane, trying on the headset and banging around the controls.  They had fun.

Kids play "rock the plane"

Ben, Tonia and Hannah enjoy the spacious Cessna 150 cockpit

Too bad I have not been flying much.  I tried for a solo cross-country, even took an afternoon off work.  But it was too windy.  Instead, I flew with my instructor to Monahans and back.  It was a blustery, uncomfortable day in the air.  Such conditions are confidence-shattering for this new pilot.

On the way to Monahans we had a stiff headwind.  I followed I-20 for a while, heading west.  From the pilot's seat I could look down and see the cars and trucks on the freeway.  They were overtaking us and slipping ahead.

@ Monahans airport (Ray Hurd Memorial)

After a potty break at Monahans we headed straight back to Odessa with a nice tailwind.  Coming into land I was utterly confused about which runway we intended to use.  I got all turned around.  Figured it out, coming in for a serious crosswind landing, gusty.  I felt like I had it nailed, but at the last few seconds Josh grabbed the controls.  This really annoys me.  If he doesn't let me land the plane, even badly, I learn nothing.  In fact I just learn bad habits.

Now the 150 is in maintenance, or it should be soon.  It's getting a new windshield, possibly new tires, and an altimeter adjustment.

I still dream of long weekends of flying over Big Bend.  But I feel my training has been foundering.  The next hurdle is the FAA Private Pilot written exam.  I'm good at exams, but I am poor at consistent studying over several weeks.  I'm feeling a bit stalled, especially with the plane in maintenance for another 1-2 weeks.

The Long, Winding Path to Kermit Sandhills

Update 6/14/2013:
Kermit sandhills is transformed.  There are now picnic tables with covers, full RV hook-ups, and a number of buildings.  Flags are required for ATV riders!  They've even planted some trees.  Weekends, the lot is attended by a guard.  Entrance fee is $10/person.  The most up-to-date info seems to be Kermit dunes Facebook page: www.facebook.com/kermitdunes.  Or call Jimmy's Liquor, they are still the owner/operators (number below).




Notice Kermit Sandhills / Dunes riders:  ownership has changed hands once again, as of 2/11/2012.  The nice website from the previous owners, at http://www.kermitsandinc.com/, lists a couple of phone numbers but one is disconnected and the other goes straight to voicemail.  Try Jimmy's Liquor on 302 on the way out of town toward Odessa.   (432) 586-9282.  Tony or Steven.

Photo from Duneguide.com

Yesterday morning in the frigid east wind and 25F cold, I set off to Odessa with my two Hondas in the back of the pickup.  Gathered Josh at his apartment and we set off, wind at our backs, down Kermit Highway to Kermit, TX.  After a quick stop at Lowe's (the food store, not the hardware big-box) we continued 10 miles NE to reach the entrance to the sandhills.  Regular readers know I've been riding here several times before, and I always find the gate open or unlocked, especially on weekends.  But not this time!  The gate was really and truly locked.  I called the two numbers listed on the website with no luck.  So we drove back to town, looking for a motorcycle shop.  No such place in Kermit, so I pulled into the local auto parts store and explained our situation to the clerk.


"The sandhills?" said the clerk.  "Nobody rides out there after the shooting incident."  "Ah..." I said, a bit taken aback.  I didn't know about the shooting incident.  "Know where I can find the owner?" I asked.  "Oh," replied the clerk.  "He's in jail.  Isn't he still in jail?" the clerk queried a customer who had just entered the store.  "I reckon he is" replied the customer.


So the owner(s) were in jail.  I asked the clerk if he knew where we could get more information, if there was anyone who could help us get access to the Sandhills.  "Oh, [the owner's] sister works over at McCoy's..." and he explained how to find McCoy's, which turned out to be an upscale furniture/furnishings store on the main square in Kermit, right across from the county courthouse.  


McCoy's was closed.  The sign said it would open at 10 am, and it was 9:58 am.  The thick chain wrapped around the door handles, and the absolute lack of any activity in the area made us very much doubt this opening time.  I fired up the Tacoma and put it in reverse just as a small pickup pulled up next to us.  An older lady got out, walked slowly to the entrance of McCoy's and began unlocking the chain on the door.  I got out and asked her if the Sandhills owner's sister worked there.  It took a few attempts (because I was saying his name incorrectly), but she finally said "Oh, I'm his mother!".  She didn't mention that her son was in jail, but she did inform me that he had sold the Sandhills.  Sold them to "Tony", the owner of the liquor store "down on 302"...


Down to 302 we went, and we found the liquor store, "Jimmy's".  Walking in, we were greeted by a rather large guy.  I told him we were looking for Tony.  "I'm Steven, Tony's brother.  Can I help y'all?" was his response.  I asked about the Sandhills and Steven suddenly lit up.  "Heck ya, go out there and ride!" he said.  "We're fixing the place up, adding electric and sewer and cleaning it up".  He gave us the 4-digit passcode and off we went, back to the Sandhills to ride.


The dunes are different every time I ride them.  This time was no exception.  Recent rain and snow had soaked into the dunes, creating a moist sand layer.  Then strong West Texas winds had dried the surface sand and blown it around, creating the dreaded "puffed sand" areas where it's easy to get stuck (typically on lee slopes, but not always!).  On the windward (east) side of the dunes, in many places the bare moist sand was exposed, making for decent traction -- but not as good as I expected.  On the crests of many dunes were wind-scalloped troughs and mounds of dry sand, making for bumpy and sometimes treacherous riding.


It was not a "fast" day.  We kept getting stuck, bogged down in the soft sand piles right next to the firm, moist sand.  The sand conditions changed every 10 feet and it was never clear what was over the next hill.  The riding was difficult.  I rarely got out of 2nd gear for more than a few seconds.  Josh didn't have goggles and sand in his eyes took its toll.  After about 1.5 hours of riding Josh had had enough.  


We did a few more loops then picked our way pack to the truck, loaded up and headed home.  


The temperature was just below freezing, with a 20 kt east wind.  We both agreed that from now on we're fair-weather dune riders.  Minimums of: light wind and 50+ degrees.  


It looks like in the future Kermit Sandhills will be a nicer, cleaner place with better camping spots and bathrooms.  I look forward to many more riding trips to the dunes... on warm, calm days.  With the new camping facilities, it might make sense to pull the pop-up camper out and spend the weekend.


For those of you looking for the new owners, try Jimmy's Liquor on 302 on the way out of town toward Odessa.  406 E State Highway 302, (432) 586-9282.  Ask for Tony or Steven. 

The Big, Big Bend

Big Bend.  Permian Basin Outing Club trip for January 2012.  I took Friday off work and spent the morning packing up and running some errands.  Then off to Big Bend via Fort Stockton and Marathon in the blue Tacoma.  

I was driving a bit fast, wanting to beat the setting sun to the trailhead.  Radar detector on, but I came up over a rise and - bam - my detector lit up and screeched.  I slowed down but it was too late.  Saw the cop far ahead by the side of the road.  Thankfully I didn't get a ticket...

Driving through the park at 45 mph (the speed limit), I enjoyed the wonderful harsh-yet-soft contrast of the late winter afternoon light.  Hard to imagine I've gotten "sick of" this park before.  Here I was again and everything looked new and wonderful.  For a long time I just enjoyed the view, cruising along with the windows down (72 degrees!).  Finally I stopped to snap some photos.  Looking all around, thinking how great it would be to be in the sky.  Soon!

Tac with Chisos Mts

Nice light

We were to park at the Chimneys trailhead and hike in and meet... somewhere.  I turned toward the south and was greeted with a wall of spectacular, nuanced rock.  The sinking sun made everything pop with contrast and detail.

A little farther and I passed a group of deer lounging near the road.

Arrived at trailhead and packed up my new Gossamer Gear backpack for the daunting three-mile hike to the Chimneys.  Ironically, this was my very first (or second?) backpacking trip ever.  I was here back in 1998 (?) on my first packing trip with friend Steve B. and two other students from GVSU.  We drove to Big Bend straight from Holland, MI, stopping only for fuel and bathroom breaks.  Arriving in Big Bend was like arriving on Mars -- an experience that led to me returning to the desert for grad school a few years later (the Sonoran desert that time).  In my wildest dreams I never imagined I'd be living in west Texas over a decade later.  

Starting off down the trail.  Sun slipping away.

The sun sets behind the Chimneys.  Where's the camping group?

Just after dark I crossed between the Chimneys on the trail and spotted headlights bobbing around in the desert.  I'd found the group.  I cut across the desert and found a flat-ish spot to pitch my tiny North Face tent, which I bought in Minnesota just before riding RAGBRAI in ~2003.  After making some tea I wandered over to a little group of PBOC-ers who were huddled around a tiny gas-powered lantern.  It served the same purpose as a campfire, giving the group a focal point and something to gaze at.  Several familiar faces and a few new ones; PBOC is growing a little bit.

It wasn't long before everyone turned in for the night.  Winter nights tend to be early ones when camping out.  I slept like a rock.

Morning view from tent

Looking WSW toward the Rio Grande

Chimney - actually appear to be a tilted sill

Looking W along the chimneys

Home.  Santa Elena Canyon visible in background.

In the morning after a certain amount of milling about, most of the group set off cross-country to the NW to find some springs.  We located them and found running water, lots of salt and alkali deposits, several deer carcasses and some large trees.  Also remnants of cowboy occupation.

An extra-pink cactus

Corral at the Old Wet Spring

PBOC-ers

Meandering down along the canyon, I finally decided to strike off on my own, west, to intersect a road.  I never saw it and eventually gave up, turning 180 degrees and going east.  Rounding a hilltop I suddenly came upon the rest of the group.  One intrepid hiker went off on her own and the rest of the group headed east in the general direction I was going.  We found the Chimney trail and followed it back to camp, which we could see from several miles off.  Back in camp, we saw some campers hanging out on one of the chimneys.  I was a bit wiped out from the 8-mile cross-country hike so I hit the tent to get out of the (hot) sun and nap.  

After a nap I went and explored the main Chimney, which houses several interesting paleo sites.

Pictographs

Stick-sharpening marks

Matate

Saturday evening was coming on and I was hungry.  Several campers floated the idea of hiking out to the vehicles and driving into Terlingua for a meal.  My plan was to work on my land north of Terlingua on Sunday.  So I quickly packed up camp and hiked out with the group.  We hit Long Draw pizza west of Terlingua -- I've never been here, it's always closed when I drive past.  After dinner I said good-bye to the PBOC-ers and ended up heading west into the state park to camp at Upper Madera.  I just slept in the truck bed.  Sunday morning I had a lazy breakfast in Terlingua and then drove the 30 minutes to "Andy's Ranch" in the Solitario part of Terlingua Ranch.  Mission for the day: clear a drive-able path to the cabin site I'd selected in December while visiting the land with Debi and Mary.  

I worked almost non-stop for nearly five hours moving rocks, chopping down plants (as few as possible) and picking up pokey bits from the "road".  In the end, I cleared a pretty good 4x4 "road" about 75% of the way to the building site.  The remaining obstacle is a small wash cutting down the hillside.  Crossing this wash is going to require the construction of a culvert, which I will build of piled local stone.  That is probably going to be a two-day job.  Then I will be able to drive up to the building site, and I can begin the rather large job of ferrying various supplies to the location: cement mixer, generator, tools, water tanks, water, fuel, etc.

Impressive, eh?  No?  Hey, this was a lot of work!!

It felt good to work moving rocks on my own property.  It's like my childhood dream of building a "fort" is finally being fully realized.  All the raw materials are there; it's just up to me to move them around, assembling them in the correct configuration to create what I want.  There is something very empowering about that, and the empowerment is very addictive.  The following few days at work all I could think of was getting back down to Big Bend and working more on the road project, specifically the culvert.

The intensity of the sun faded and I looked up, realizing it was late afternoon.  I tossed the pickaxe and shovel in the truck and hopped in for the four-hour drive back to Midland.