Enroute Monday, July 8 Tuesday, July 9 Wednesday, July 10 Thursday, July 11 Friday, July 12

Sunday, July 7: Enroute to Spearfish, SD After finally resolving our exhaust valve issues, we were packed and wheels-up at 7:30am this morning, generally following the I-90 corridor from our home field (PAE) in Everett, WA. To our surprise, the Goodyear Blimp was on hand at PAE to wish us well on our journey. The weather was fairly nice and smooth across the Cascades and the Columbia River, but turned worse as we approached Spokane. At 9:00 AM and about 25 nm west of Spokane, we had to maneuver north around lighting strikes and virga. East of Spokane, the weather improved, and we had a nice flight over Missoula and Butte, with a landing in Bozeman to refuel and stretch our legs. At Bozeman, we ran into Ben, another Navion owner who we met last fall when we were weathered in for a few days in Bozeman. It took three attempts to succesfully depart Bozeman, however. On the first try, I started the engine and got permission from the ground controller to taxi to the active runway. When we weren't budging with around 2200 rpm, we sheepishly told the ground controller we were just kidding about the taxiing and shutdown to check for chocks. We were extremely graditifed to find that no chocks were blocking our tires (we could have sworn we did a preflight!) but just happened to be parked in a depression. On the second try, we actually managed to depart the airport and got about 10 miles away from Bozeman. I was just about to comment on how much worse the turbulence was than I expected, when Ron proclaimed, in his most melodramatic voice, "we have to land now!" He was looking in the direction of the left side of the tail, so I immediately checked to make sure the tail hadn't fallen off. What I found was the baggage door flopping in the wind, and our stuff flying out! Another return to Bozeman (I did a little slip to try to preserve what was left of our belongings). Luckily we only ended up donating some shop towels and a quart or two of oil to the preflight gods. Let us never speak of Bozeman again. Next, we flew over Sheridan, WY and just north of Gillette, WY, where we snuck a peak at the Devil's Tower. We arrived in Spearfish at around 5:00pm. There are reported to be about 45 Navions here as of about 8:00pm, with more expected on Monday. Judging from the Sunday evening reception, it's shaping up to be a great convention! Keep an eye on this website; I will try to add a little more information and pictures from the convention each day.