Friday! It's the last day of the race, and we need to be in Mobile by 19:59 tonight - sunset. We're up early and ready to finish this mission. The icing on the cake would be to arrive in Mobile by the original terminus deadline of 17:00. We'll see. For now, it's off to Hutchinson County Airport - aka Borger. It will be another hot day in the South.
As we drive into the airport, we pass a "cemetery" for jet engines. The morning sun glints off the baking metal. They must be pretty hot by midday.
Charissa and Patti S are walking across to our planes to begin organizing to leave. Those are some fine looking birds on the ramp here.
Team 6 has joined us too - Linda Keller and Mimi Reiheld. They ran into some mechanical issues and had to get an alternator fix. It required an off route stop and a road trip, but they're back. We're all heading out for Norman OK.
We're flying east now and heading for stop #8 - University of Oklahoma. More flat land with scrub brush and trees along the way...and a wind farm...note the isolated house at the top of the picture...no neighbors in sight.
We do see broad patches of red earth mixed in with green and brown. The landscape is an interesting mix, and the green is increasing a bit. It's already warm with temps rising. We cannot seem to shake the headwinds, but they are certainly not as strong as yesterday.
Norman OK is just south side of Oklahoma City, which I'll be visiting soon for the International 99s meeting later in July. Norman is bigger than I expected, and I'm sure that it's a great college town. The OU teams on the ARC have always been fun groups. It will be nice to land on their field, although it will be a quick turn. I'm talking to Charissa about her doing at least one of the fly-bys, but she defers on this one. El Dorado will be her stop. We're talking to the tower here and getting set up - 200 ft above ground - fly by to land. We taxi to the ramp after landing, again drenched in sweat. We've got cold water handed to us, as I start to tidy up the plane a bit before going inside. I finally turn to greet our host at the plane, and discover it's "Squeege", a racer friend from 2009!!! What a great surprise. She had said that she was going to meet me at OUN to wash my windows, and dang, here she is. She's shooting pictures and fly-by videos too. Very sweet.OU gives us a great welcome...cold water...a golf cart ride to the terminal...a brown lunch bag with freshly made PB&J, cookies, etc. We are collecting ourselves, refueling us and the plane, and heading off to the flight planning room that doubles as a classroom for the aviation program. We love the bigger-than-life E6B whiz-wheel and 6-pack instruments. A traffic controller also stops by to compliment ARC racers on their professionalism and great work in the pattern. After polishing off the PB&J, we make our way downstairs to pay our fuel bill and prepare for the departure to El Dorado. Maybe that 5 pm landing at Mobile will come to pass, but it will be tight. Moving on...
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