Friday, July 15, 2011

Leg #10 - ALL 10 stops and 2700+ miles completed!!!

We are wrapping this up in just a couple more hours. YES!!! Classic 41 will have flown and landed at ALL 10 stops of the original route. These are memories that will stay with us for our lifetimes. Our camaraderie with the other pilots has been limited to the start, just 3-4 other teams along the route, numerous good wishes and cheering from the racers via Facebook in response to our posts. We look forward to reconnecting with our sister racers at the terminus. We have missed them these past few days.
This part of the country is a great contrast to the dry, scrubby, brown earth that we left in Borger this morning. Evidence of flooded waterways, reflecting the clouds above, spilling over their banks and submerging mature trees with just their tops poking out. Lush forests right up against the banks of another section of river that meanders through the countryside.
More water and a barge pushing its cargo through the water.
Another barge. A bridge spanning the river and connecting the opposing banks.

We're watching our map...flying low yet staying safely clear of obstacles...avoiding the restricted area...arriving for a cold Military Operations Area (MOA).
We are seeing some storms brewing to the north and south of our route. On the north side, we can see a large anvil cloud pushing south towards us, but we will beat it out of the area safely. The stormscope picks up activity off at a distance. We're beating it, yet we can see strong showers along the route.
We stay low below the airspace shelf and angle around the inner ring staying clear of it. We watch the skyline of Mobile race past us, as we set up for this fly-by. We are talking with the tower and are cleared for our fly-by 300 ft above ground and right down over runway14 at top speed. It's the last adrenaline rush moment of the 2011 Air Race Classic. Four days are gone in what seems like the blink of an eye.

We circle to land, taxi to the FBO, but unlike any of the 4 races that I've done now, there's nobody to greet us on the ramp. It's an hour and a half until the deadline, yet no racers remain...no greeters.  Just a line guy as we shut down and turn in our keys. The meltdown party is already in full swing downtown at the hotel well before all the racers are in. It's rather a disappointing anticlimax to an otherwise wonderful adventure.

Ah but we do have a redeeming surprise. A race team just happens to stop by the airport and FBO, and they happen to recognize 51-Charlie on the ramp area. As we shut down the instruments and open the doors of the plane to step out on the tarmac, we look up to discover The Three Musketeers are our welcoming party - Gene Nora Jessen, Patty Mitchell, and BJ Carter deliver warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies to us on the ramp. They offer to have us join them for dinner out on the marina somewhere for a great seafood meal. It's a tough call, as I hate missing the meltdown party, but it's effectively over. So we're off with the Musketeers for some boiled shrimp and other seafood delights. We are finished!!! We did it!!!  We did it our way!!!

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