Hanna 'goes' to Homer

Signs of winter - lots of snow on the mountains and moose in the yard.
Hanna and I went down to Homer yesterday because it was calm and
sunny and I felt like a long airplane ride. It was CAVU from Augustine to Denali and the colors were great but of course I left the camera in the back of the plane both ways. We just walked around Homer a bit then came right back because we had to pick up Jake at a friends house.

Jake and Dave on the beach

These are on a beach E of Seward (near Prince William Sound) where my Uncle has a cabin. Jake and I took some gear in for my other Uncle and his wife for a camping trip (2 Uncles and 3 Aunts - I forget why the other Uncle wasn't there). I wanted Jake to wait in Seward with 2 of the Aunts because I had such a big load, but he didn't want to be separated so I went in heavier than I'd have liked.

North Slope Moonrise

From my room at work...

Kenai Air Fair

Jake and I went to the Kenai Air Fair today. We flew all over the Peninsula (Palmer, Nikiski, Soldotna, Quartz Creek, Seward, Ninilchik, Kasilof, Kenai, Palmer) on the poker run. We skipped Homer because it was gusting to 20 but won a nice coat and hat with 3 nines anyway... CAVU everywhere, the Air Force rock band was at the Kenai airport, flew 4.5 hrs... good day.

Knik 15 Apr

Nice day up the Knik yesterday (and the day before when Jake and I were there). My Aunt & Uncle, wife of an old friend and a couple of my Uncles friends were up there yesterday. At one time there were 8 planes at the picnic strip, and later another guy I know flew over so I hailed him on the radio and he stopped for a bit. He said that the day before he'd seen 2 wolves with an injured moose so we went up to Lake George where I saw one of the wolves but we couldn't find anything else but lots of healthy-appearing moose. I've seen coyotes up there, but never a wolf before. Next time I see a group of moose I'm going to take a closer look and see if wolves are hanging around too.

I stopped at Goose Bay on the way back with my Uncle Don. It was practically moderate turbulence all the way down and I used most of 3000ft before I could keep it level long enough to land. Leaving Palmer in a crosswind I got a little inattentive and crossed up by a gust lifting the wing then coming back it was gusting to 25 at 50 degrees so I had to make 2 tries to get into the gravel strip. The guy with the Husky landed behind me and looked real good - but he said he saw how much I was rolling so he ran it on at 80 mph. There were people parked by the runway watching the 'action' - it pretty much fully taxed my abilities. It was too much pressure - I'm waiting for a calmer day to fly some more!

Palmer Saturday

Good day at the Palmer airport - someone (I forget the name..) bought
the Woods DC3's and is putting them to use flying freight and
passengers out of Anchorage. Today they were moving this one to Anch.

Dave

Knik 28 Feb

Another nice sightseeing day up the Knik with Hanna... It's been so clear we've been going up every other day or so around sunset. Cold though - it was 5 on the ground.