Pancake Fly-in at Desert Aire

Flew over this morning for the annual pancake breakfast hosted by the folks at Desert Aire (M94, near Mattawa, WA.). Desert Aire is a retirement/fly-in community with their own golf course and bordered by Priest Rapids Lake. Seattle was cool and overcast with 50 degrees while the temps over in Eastern Washington were a balmy 80 and nothing but sun. The flight over was spectacular and once climbing on top of the overcast layer, all of the Washington (and some Oregon) peaks were visible. It was interesting how the cloud layer just ended about 50 miles East of Seattle. The second photo shows the border of the cloud deck as I was heading West back to Seattle at 8000'.

Breakfast for Dinner

I was just itching to go fly the 182 from the left seat, since the last two flights were from the right as a CFI. The ceilings finally lifted around 3:00 pm so we loaded up the car seats (and the kids) and headed North to Harvey Field (S43). The Buzz-Inn is located on the field and there are several Buzz's located around the Seattle area. The menu is quite extensive and they serve breakfast all day long. Usually when we fly someplace for breakfast we arrive after breakfast is no longer served, so it was a treat to see that the breakfast menu at the Buzz was fair game. We both ordered the Denny's equivilent of a Grand Slam and got mac-n-cheese for the kids.

While doing the pre-flight for the return one of the jump planes from the skydive operation at Harvey departed, and soon after there were three canopies descending for the airport. The ceilings were around 3500', and these jumpers looked like they knew what they were doing, so my guess is that it was the staff getting in a last jump of the day.

Angel Flight Mission #6

I had another opportunity to use the airplane for charitable giving by flying some coolers of blood from Lopez Island (S31) to Boeing Field (KBFI). Once again I forgot my camera, so for the second Angel Flight in a row, I don't have any photos to document the trip.