End of day 2 - where in the world is Cool Beans?

Text by Alison, photos posted by Linda in the blog entry below.

After my morning post about the compass coming unglued from its windshield mount in the extreme heat, I'm happy to report that Bode Aviation mechanic Sean at Albuquerque Double Eagle finally found the right glue and stuck it right back up there. Hurray! Thanks to everyone at Double Eagle, including Stop Chairs Dave Wiesner and Michelle Boyko, and Joyce Woods, all of whom were so thoughtful and helpful. Unfortunately during the morning I again broke the motto on the back of our T shirts ("there's no crying in air racing!"), because I walked into the wing flaps while we were loading the plane, leaving a big dent in my head, and sending me crashing backwards onto the floor. It hurt a lot!

We finally took off from Double Eagle about 1030, circled back around for our departure flyby at Mid Valley, and climbed up to 9500 feet for our final mountain leg. Linda flew this leg, with Alison doing communication and navigation. The mountains were stark and bare, very dramatic and beautiful. Again, we were flying over terrain that is remote in the extreme, with few airports or any signs of human habitation. The elevation gradually decreased until we crossed into West Texas around Roswell (didn't see any alien spaceships), still a remote landscape apart from the vast oilfields that are dotted around. We did a flyby to continue at Midland Texas, and without stopping we continued on to our next stop, Waco.

At Waco we did a quick turnaround and set off on leg 4 for Arkadelphia Arkansas. This was a beautiful flight. East Texas and Arkansas looked from above like a big garden in the evening light, dotted with woods and lakes and rolling hills, and everything so green which was absolutely delightful after the deserts and mountains. We flew peacefully under a ceiling of little puffy white clouds. Our final flyby at Arkadelphia went smoothly, and we came around to land. The airport volunteers got us refueled, gave us water, and made sure we had a ride to the hotel. It was wonderful to see Camelia Smith, our air racing friend from back when we started in 2008. Exhausted now - we'll sleep well tonight!