Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

The weather didn’t exactly cooperate for our stay. It was overcast with low clouds, rain, mist, and a lot of mountain obscuration the entire time - OK, that is until the morning we left and we woke up to sunny skies. Although the plan to see some of Colorado from the skies had to be tossed out the window, the Ziliks manged to keep us highly entertained. We woke up Friday morning and walked up from the house to take a peek at the peak you can see just a few blocks from the Zilik’s house, Mt. Evans. Gary offered to take us up to the top, even though it was a quite a drive. Mt. Evans stands at 14,264. For comparison, Pike’s Peak is 14,110 and the tallest in Colorado is Mt. Elbert at 14,433.

We made the drive up the mountain in Gary’s 1967 Mustang, and what a drive it was. Down through the valleys, across the green meadows, and up the insanely steep inclines. We passed about a dozen cyclists working their way up the mountain. I’m tired just thinking about it! The park service was unable to get the road plowed all the way to the top due to the snow the night before. We had to stop and enjoy the views at Summit Lake, 12800 feet. Gary and I climbed up the slick snow another 500 feet or so while Scott watched us struggle up the hill. You know that I had to see what was on the other side, and Gary couldn’t let a Texan get higher than him. The views up the other side were pretty impressive. The real Texan was stomping around in about 4 inches of snow, not much but fluffier and deeper than he has ever seen. The lack of oxygen up there was definitely affecting all of us. It was a useful experience to feel the affects as it made us all the more aware when flying at higher altitudes. As we were leaving, the sky started dropping a light layer of snow. I don’t think we could have ordered a better departure.

We made our way back down off the mountain, with Scott and I still in our state of awe. It was about 2pm. Since Carolyn started cooking dinner at 8 am, we opted for a snack of a piece of pizza each in Idaho Springs so that we didn’t ruin our appetites. On the way back to the house, we made a quick pit stop at Red Rock. There was a high school graduation going on, apparently several were scheduled for the weekend, and a wedding on the back side. A beautiful scene with the great acoustics one would expect.

Scott and Deb Mills, RV9A, joined us for dinner. The dinner happened to be a recipe Carolyn borrowed from Paul Dye - a great pulled brisket sandwich brought us right back to Texas. We completed the evening swapping stories.

Since Saturday was another non-flying day, we went to the Bucksnort Restaurant for lunch. Gary took us down a very narrow mountain road with the mountains rising several hundred feet straight up on both sides. The valley was so deep and steep that it probably didn’t receive more than 2 hours of sun a day. As we arrived, Scott started humming the theme from Deliverance, and boy did it fit! The “bridge” was the bottom of a railroad car. The place would certainly not pass a building inspection, but it was another unique experience.

The afternoon brought a few sunny patches and the rain stopped, so we walked up to the top of the hill on which Gary and Carolyn live. It was some great exercise, and once again, the views were incredible. I sure like springtime in Colorado, even if the weather wasn’t so nice to us this year. We’ll be back. Carolyn cooked us a delicious and simple dinner, and we went to bed early to prepare for what looked to be a tough trip home.

The trip home made for a long day. Half of Texas was covered with scattered thunderstorms, and Austin was smothered with storms. We made our way almost straight south from Denver to Dalhart, TX for gas and then continued down to Midland to avoid most of the convective activity. From there, we headed east and were greeted by a light tailwind. We dodged a few more thunderstorms, headed for our fuel stop to discover it, as well as most other attended locations in the area, were under some heavy rain. We were within 50 miles of another small strip that had a “number to call for fuel on weekends” and I decided to take a long shot and try to reach unicom. Lady luck was with us, and unicom answered to say they were called out by a jet and would wait for us. As we took off from our last fuel stop, we were pleasantly surprised to see the cloud tops low enough that we could go over the top and a nearly clear path home. Just one problem, north of home about 30 miles was covered with red and purple. Only one thing to do, fly on and hope it didn’t move south! Fortunately, it didn’t, and what we expected to be the toughest leg turned out to be the easiest.

We tucked away 22C, and now she is just waiting for the next adventure.

We arrived safely at Front Range airport about 2pm local time on Thursday. The flight was uneventful until we were about an hour southeast of Denver. We had to make our way through a stalled front and some rain showers. The temperature fell about 8 degrees C in about 10 seconds - gee I guess that was when we passed the front. At 12000 feet and 4 degrees C in the clouds, we asked for a lower altitude. That was a little too close to freezing for our comfort.

We were vectored around a little bit for the ILS into Front Range, FTG. We popped out of the clouds about 600 feet AGL. There is no way we would have made it in without the IFR ticket. Actually, we never would have left if we didn’t that capability based on the radar returns and forecasts. Gary met us at the airport and help tuck away 4822C in a hangar he procured for us. His hangar is amazing. Thirty foot tall ceilings, fully insulated, and heated. They are big enough to fit 3 or 4 RVs in. And there are rows of them!

We started the trek to Gary’s house. He is up in the mountains tucked away in the pine trees. It seems like more of a vacation location than a home. The overcast skies gave us an amazing show as we traveled up to 8500 feet with the clouds tucked in and billowing up around the mountain ridges. No sun yesterday, but we have two more days to be able to see all the scenery. It doesn’t look like the weather is going to cooperate to see any of the views from the sky, but you never know. We can always hope for a change in the forecast.

Carolyn fed us a great dinner, we imbibed a few beverages, told stories, and had a great night’s sleep

I’m scheduled for the knowledge test on Saturday up in Georgetown. The place that is about 5 miles from my office closed down the end of January, about 2 months after Scott took his exam. So, I’m off to one of the flight schools up in Georgetown to take the exam.

Sunday was another 2 hours under the hood. I had only planned an hour after our Saturday adventures, but things were going well so it lasted longer than planned. We spent some quality time with a partial panel - VOR tracking and approaches. I crossed over the 30 hour mark, so it is now time to get the long cross country and test prep completed. Deene, are you listening???

I’m pretty sure we have found out retirement location. Yeah, I know it is decades off, but we must have plans. We flew into Pecan Plantation just southeast of Granbury, TX last Saturday for their fly-in, which the RV group invaded instead of running our own. It may have been one of those blessings in disguise. The weather wasn’t great and the turnout was smaller than usual, so we helped pick up some of the slack.

The development is nothing short of spectacular. Unlike most airport developments I have seen, access to the runway crosses roads allowing a whole lot more pilots to live with their airplanes. The runway was even sufficient for me, 2225 x 50 - I could learn to land on that consistently. Add to that it is actually affordable. Don’t get me wrong, there are some beautiful homes. It just didn’t seem that you had the 5,000+ sq ft homes around, nor did it seem that you had $250,000 homes next to the $1,000,000 homes. If it did, the developer hid it well. If we could figure out a way to make a living at home, I think our house would already be up for sale - even in this market!

The view when taking off was spectacular as well. There is a full pecan forest to the northeast - apparently the nuts are still harvested. I could almost feel the lush, green canopy-carpet that was laid out before me. The development is surrounded by a winding river. It seems like the builders left as many of the pecan trees as possible as some of the houses were still swallowed up by them. Oh, there is a golf course too, but who cares when you have a plane? Scott didn’t get to enjoy the view since the airport was busy with departures - looks like we’ll need to do some surveying next time we go up.

Oh yeah, the fly-in. We had a good RV turnout, saw several of our friends, and I passed out the requisite cookies. We even had our own mini-raffle to pass out hats and shirts that Vans sent for the RV fly-in that wasn’t this year. Scott is getting a little more comfortable taxiing on the grass. It’s good practice for Oskhosh.