Mississippi River Flight - Day One
Essex Skypark to Chicago, Illinois
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| I'm flying to Chicago today, the first leg of my Mississippi River Flight. The weather forecast was outstanding. I loaded up the plane with all my stuff. The plane is always heavily loaded on a long cross-country flight like this: tools to fix the plane -- in particular, to fix a flat tire. Survival equipment. Clothes for a week. Beef jerky and gatorade for the in-flight food and beverage service. |
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Crossing the Ohio River. I still need to fly this river. But not today. I will see the Ohio River again later in the week.
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| After a couple of hours, I stopped at Port Bucyrus-Crawford County Airport (17G) in Ohio for fuel and to stretch my legs. In addition to the asphalt runway, Port Bucyrus has a nice 3,000 long grass runway; regretfully I didn't notice it until after I had landed on the boring asphalt. |
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Port Bucyrus -- pronounced "Bu" - "Cyrus" -- doesn't have self-service fuel but the friendly airport manager Kevin Detray showed up right away and helped me fill the RV-7 up. Thanks to Foreflight I knew the price was good -- less than $4.
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| The FBO building. I enjoyed talking with Kevin and another airport regular inside. They have an orange and white airport cat who was very friendly. I was sitting on the counch and the cat walked over, curled up on my lap and went to sleep! Kevin gave me the keys to the courtesy car -- I drove into town to a family restaurant Kevin had recommended: Lulu's Kitchen. I ordered a cheeseburger and it was so big, I could not eat it all. I can't remember ever ever being able to eat an entire hamberger. Lulu's: recommended. |
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| Kevin on the left about to board this turboprop. Kevin has managed this airport for 38 years! |
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| I thought this manmade pond that belongs to eight or so houses was interesting. |
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I passed by a large windmill farm area. There were over a hundred, at least. Big ones.
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| Two hours after departing Port Bucyrus, I am in a left downwind for Schaumburg Regional Airport in Chicago. Schaumburg does not have a control tower but it is a relatively busy city airport. |
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| On base for runway 29, Chicago O'Hare International Airport -- one of the busiest airports int he world -- is clearly visible a few miles away to the east. |
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| Safe on deck at Schaumburg which has an airport restaurant -- Pilot Pete's -- which overlooks the flight line. You can see the sign just above my canopy. |
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Parked next to a green and white RV-10, which I checked out of course.
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| The front of the terminal at Schaumburg. My friends Frank and Gail arrived and we had drinks and appetizers at Pilot Pete's. The food at Pilot Pete's was outstanding. Highly recommended! |
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| Frank, Gail and I relaxing at Woodfire restaurant where we had dinner. Actually, a minor dinner since we had partaked of too many delicious appetizer's at Pilot Pete's. It's always great seeing old friends. |
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