Laurie and I wanted to take a weekend getaway to Pendleton, Oregon to check out some different hotels for the August aerobatic contest. Leading up to Friday, the forecast was for CAVU all across the Pacific Northwest.
Come Friday morning though, there was a large area of low clouds stretching from Tri-Cities, to Walla Walla on down to Pendleton. But it was supposed to burn off by 3pm.
Off we went from Renton (KRNT)! We had moderate turbulence up through 8,000 on the way to 9,500. But the scenery was fantastic!
Enroute, the weather at Pendleton (KPDT) didn't improve, so we stopped at Prosser (S40) for some lunch at the Red Barn. By early afternoon, Hermiston (KHRI) had opened up so we hopped across the Oregon border to wait out the weather at Pendleton. By 3pm there was no improvement, so I made the decision to rent a car and drive the remaining 30 miles to Pendleton.
We enjoyed our "mission" on checking out a couple hotels, a casino and a few restaurants.
Sunday morning the Hermiston weather was 1/4 mile visibility in freezing fog. Uh oh. We set off around 11am to drive to Hermiston to wait at the airport until the weather improved.
Cresting a hill about 10 miles from Hermiston, we were greeted by this fog bank!
Upon arriving at KHRI, this is what we found... That's my lonely 172 on the ramp.
The freezing fog sure made some interesting formations on the antennae.
And left a nice layer of thin ice all over the airplane.
We returned the rental car and took possession of the airport courtesy car. We went from a 2011 Ford Fusion (with heated seats) to an early 90's vintage Lincoln Mark VII, that couldn't get out of first gear, but had a PacBell car phone. Well, at least we were saving $45/day in charges...
By 3pm the ice had melted off the Cessna, but visibility never got over 1.5 miles and a ceiling of 200 feet. Camped out at the airport and watched the first half of the Superbowl on my iPad. By halftime we figured our chances of departing weren't good so we checked into the Best Western next to the airport.
A friend of a friend had an empty hangar so I was able to put the Cessna inside Sunday night so it wouldn't be an ice cube the following morning.
Back to the airport in the morning when we had to leave the hotel at 11am. It was still 1/4 mile and freezing fog. By noon it was 3 miles and 200 feet. Slowly the visibility increased and the ceiling raised enough for us to launch about 2:30 and head southwest towards visible blue sky. Once out from under the clouds, we were able to climb up to 8,500 for a smooth flight home.
That is until we let down into western Washington's gusty winds. Landing back at Renton on runway 16, we had to deal with winds at 11 gusting to 22 from 080. Nice challenge at the end of a long weekend...
More pictures to come once we figure out how to download off of Laurie's new camera.
Click here for the route down.
Click here for the route back.
More pictures from the weekend.
Before we left home on Friday, we spotted these beautiful birds by our home.
Here are some nice pictures from the flight down to Oregon.
Then the days of frost...
And the eventual flight home on Monday.
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