Its the middle of the summer and the weather is nice to fly. It’s the weekend of July 4th. We fly to Palm Springs for the weekend to do a photo shoot for the Palm Springs Air Museum and Mama Pilot and Little Dude tag along.

We stopped in Bend on the way down for a quick overnight and to drop Plane Girl. Then we had the first instrument malfunction we have had since getting the new engine in 2016. The EGT monitor was inop! It had worked just the day before. We tried a run up and nothing. The taxied to the end of the runway. Nothing. We decided to taxi back to the FBO and see if a mechanic was free to look at it. Of course the moment that Mike from Leading Edge Bend touched the plane the gauge illuminated.

It did stay on and passed all the checks so we were off to Palm Springs. Palm Springs in July is really really hot. We landed a little later than we intended and parked at Signature. We have tried Atlantic in the past and thought we would try the other FBO. It was basically the same. We went inside and The Little Dude got the last chocolate chip cookie of the night. Our car that we ordered from AVIS was ready to go and we loaded up to the hotel.

It’s about a 3 hour flight and instead of just letting The Little Dude play on his ipad the whole time, we brought along battleship! It was pretty easy to play in the plane through the headsets.

We normally stay with family but decided on the JW Marriott since Papa Pilot was going to be working and Mama pilot was only 2 weeks out from knee surgery. The JW is a very large hotel with a few pools and restaurants. It was a great base to relax while Papa Pilot was out doing his flying. Mama Pilot and The Little Dude enjoyed the pool, mini golf and fun extras at the hotel. The evening of July 4th we got to enjoy the fireworks of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley from the golf course.

Since Papa Pilot was working with the Air museum we spent some time there visiting Too. His Grandfather was a pilot in WWI and the P47 the Palm Springs Air Musuem owns is painted In his insignia. The museum has a great collection of airplanes from WWI, WWI, and the Korean War.

Once the photo trip was complete, we loaded up and headed back to Bend for Plane Girl.