San Juans

Mom had this brilliant idea months ago that we should fly up to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. So, we did just that this past Wednesday. I cleared it with my wholesalers and took the day off...It was a nice reprieve from work (which has really stunk lately, by the way). Mom and I met up in the morning and headed out to the hanger. We took off at 10:52am, after Mom had created the flight plan and checked the weather along our route. When we got in the air, a heavy fog?mist?cloud? was over Portland, which forced us to climb up to 10,500 feet, several thousand more than Mom wanted to climb. But we got through the tough stuff just fine!

Here is a shot showing where Columbia and the Willamette meet.



The flight there went really well! Mom had me double checking our location on a map, which was just about as much navigation I was capable of. I've never been very good with topical maps, so it was a little scary trying to figure out where we were at. It was all French to me!




We landed around 1pm...We spent way too long finding a spot to eat, and we ended up in "The Hungry Clam," which made some of the best fries and calamari I think I've ever had! After eating we took our time and wandered around the little town. It was a gorgeous day, much warmer than we had anticipated.



Around 4:45pm, we got back in the plane and headed home. These are some pictures of the trip home. The sun was beginning to go down and the water looked gorgeous!







We actually had to land the plane in Chehalis due to bad weather. From the ground, the clouds looked beautiful, but from the air, it was a gloomy prospect...We would have had to detour out to the coast and then cut back home through Tillamook. Ugh. Dad was kind enough to drive the hour and a half to pick us up and take us home. It was a long day, but Mom and I had a really good time overall!