2018-07 WA09 (Roche Harbor, WA)

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SUMMER! 

Being a girl, raised in Florida it’s funny how differently I think about summer in the PNW.  I have lived in Washington State for 5 years and its just now hitting me. The dread of winter, the lack of flying the bonanza for months, longing for  a blue bird day or weekend during the gloom where we can escape short days and fill our minds with new flying memories and adventures.

Then, summer comes around. Summer doesn’t start June 21st in Seattle like most places, it really starts the 2nd week in July. That’s when one can count on the hot blue skies days to offer endless opportunities to explore. The runways are all open and not covered in snow and the back country opens up too, and the worry about icing is nearly non-existent.

This summer Sunday was a great day to meet up with our local flying family friends, The Birdies for dinner. We are lucky there are a lot of on airport restaurants within an hour of our base, S50 and  KBVS (Skagit) is suggested for their on airport restaurant Flyers Restaurant and Brewhouse. It is also one of our; “where to next” airports. We land on runway 29 and park in transient parking, I look over to the right and see the restaurant, looks…. closed? Yep, closed. We are very aware most airport restaurants only serve breakfast and lunch, but this said brewery and my mind just didn’t think of it. Great, time to whip out the iPhone and begin plan B. But wait, our friends! We hear them on CTAF and they are in the pattern and are going to land soon. We tell them when the land to come up to a different frequency. 

Of course Skagit is pretty remote and we didn’t bring The Little Dudes carseat for a short dinner flight. No other walking distance options with food are near. Plan B: Roche Harbor or Friday Harbor. Both are Airports with restaurants within walking distance we have been to before and within 15 minutes. The only potential issue is now we are a party of 8 with 4 kids and crossing that fine line of dinner time to hangry time. No one wants to take hangry kids and wait. 

We take back off and I start calling restaurants to inquire about waits and reservations. On Roche, The Madrona has open tables and is first come first serve. There we have it we’re off to Roche! 

Bonus, now we get to do some formation flying with our friends and head there as a flight of 2.

The Madrona is just a wonderful spot. Right on the water over looking the marina, casual atmosphere and the food was very fresh with lots of wonderful options. Mama pilot got the lettuce wedge salad with sirloin and papa pilot the cheeseburger, so delicious. Such a perfect evening with the low sun, calm winds, and the tranquility of the harbor drives us to wish that tomorrow weren’t Monday.  But alas, we finish

dinner and it is late. We need to come back and stay some time at the resort. They do have a few restaurants, a pool and a playground. 

But we take the short 10 minute walk back to the tie down areas and say our good byes as now were encroaching on bedtime. Its time to fly home as the sun sets on our tail            and start planning our next adventure together.

 

2018-04 6K5 (Sisters,OR)

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Spring time offers limited availability for flying in the PNW. We are always looking at the weather app to see if there is a change where the weather will allow for adventure. It’s Easter weekend and our family in Oregon has offered to host us for dinner and an Egg hunt! We land at Sisters Airport, meet Gramie and its straight to dinner at the Sisters Saloon. The Saloon is a hotel from 1912 that has been restored and made into a restaurant. We dine in the dinning area and enjoy a meal of chicken wings, pasta and sliders- all of which are great quality.

If you have never been to Sisters you can walk to “town” in about 15 minutes. The town is known for its rodeo “The Biggest Little Show in the World” and quilt festival every year. We never seem to make either of the large events, but it is in our triangle for places to visit when coming to central Oregon.

After dinner as we are walking to the car when a girl runs over to us with a box! She said she is from the bakery across the street and offers us donuts. It is a huge full box( seemingly a lifetime supply of heart attacks in a box), but we are staying in a hotel for the night and its nice to have easy food around while everyone is gearing up for the day. I feel like this is the kind of thing that only happens in small towns!

We haven’t stayed at Tetherow for a while and choose it for the new pool and recreation center. The next day we have some donuts and head out for a hike in Tumalo. Nothing fancy, just exploring a few trails in the Tumalo State Park. We then head for lunch at Crux Brewery.

One of the things I really love about Bend is the chill environment, places like Crux and The Bite have open space with food trucks and yard games for kids. We enjoy just having some casual food and drinks, while the kids can move around and play. It is not always easy after driving to the airport, flying in the plane, then driving to restaurant to ask young kids to sit still for on hour sit down dinner, so we like to plan our trips focused on this consideration.

In the afternoon we dive into the pool. The website says the pool is heated; but it was a tad too chilly for our liking. We abort and go back to the room to relax. The next day is Easter and the kids get to do an Easter egg hunt!

What was really interesting about this trip from an aviation perspective was our departure. We planned to leave around mid day from Sisters. The weather looked great! It was sunny in Bend, the METAR at Bend and Redmond showed clear with nothing depicting on the radar. But as we drove from Bend to Sisters the sky started to get gray. Then Papa Pilots brother said it was snowing?! How could that be, every weather information source we had said it was only partly cloudy? Sure enough, as we get about 3 miles from the airport it starts to snow (dump actually). We sit in the truck wondering what to do. After a quick coffee break we come back and the weather is clearing. We use the windshield brush/ scrapers to get the snow off the plan before it melts and turns into ice. That small weather system lasted for only about 15 minutes but could have been potentially dangerous for us. Nevertheless, with the plane cleared off and the skies parting we made it home safe.

 

  

 

2018-02 KCLS (Chehalis, WA)

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Finally a nice day in the PNW! A few days of sun in the Seattle area and all the pilots take to the skies! We’re up for a short lunch trip and somewhere new. Chehalis airport has been on our list since the airport is located right next to a golf course that you can walk a short distance to. It is a short flight from home base and doesn’t require a rental or courtesy car.

We’re also super excited that our friends the Birdie family are able to fly to Chehalis too and join us for lunch.

We head to the airport with the beco carrier, a backpack and a strider bike. It’s a short 25 minutes to KCLS from S50. The airport is quite busy with helicopter traffic when we want to depart, but we finally get a window. We take off north and turn south. We have to stay a bit east of our direct course to avoid the Seattle Bravo airspace. It’s one of the first nice weekend days in a while so there is plenty of traffic out. We are again thankful for our adsb and being able to know where traffic is along our route.

No one in the plane family has been to KCLS before so we approach with caution. It’s left traffic for runway 34 and we haven’t heard any one on the shared CTAF for KCLS. We enter a left downwind and notice that Chehalis is in a bit of a valley with small mountainous terrain on both sides.

We land and roll all the way to the end. The transient parking and FBO and fuel are towards runway 16. We park close to the fuel farm and notice stairs just behind the fuel farm. We wait just a bit for our friends to land and then rally the kids for the very short walk to the riverbend golf course restaurant.

 

We walk by the putting green and driving range and into an open dining area. It’s 1pm and we have the family dining area downstairs to ourselves. The dining area is very welcoming and we order our lunch. The kids food comes out first and then the rest. All the food was very good, the service was a bit slow, but when you are with friends that’s okay.

It’s cold outside! But the little dude brought his tiny putter to play some golf and his friend brought a ball, perfect! We let the older kids practice their putting and play in the sand trap, but it’s a bit cold for the babies. A short 2 minutes up and down the stairs across an old train track and we are back at the airport and the planes. Time to say goodbye and load up and head home.

 

the little dude carrying his bike up the stairs
brother and sister ready to fly
Strider bike for the win
fuel. picnic benches. stairs to golf course

2017-12 S45 (Siletz Bay, OR)

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Another throw at the map and we have had our last flight of the year. It’s 2 days before Christmas and it’s clear outside! Time to go for a a flight. The Oregon Coast is clear too; very rare. We are just going for a day trip, so we look at some of the smaller airports we don’t normally fly into due to weight concerns. Siletz Bay and Nehelam bay are the 2 that catch our eyes. We’re hoping to walk from the airport to lunch and maybe fly a kite at the beach.

We choose Siletz Bay. It’s just over an hour from Auburn. The closest airport with weather is Newport, OR just south of Siletz and shows marginal VFR, but our plan B is to go back to Seaside which we pass on the way down and know it’s clear.

We take off to the north at Auburn and turn south towards the Oregon coast. The Oregon coast is a beautiful high cliff coastline with lots of large rocks protruding out of the water.

The Siletz Bay Airport is just south of one of Oregon’s more famous city’s, Lincoln City. We planned to visit the Side door cafe once we land. The runway sits north – south and the wind favors runway 35. After we land we park at the tie down area. The airport doesn’t offer any services or have an FBO. Google maps showed we would exit the airport on road. Walk down 101 a bit, then be at the restaurant. We bring the little dudes bike and the Tula carrier to navigate the distance. To our surprise there is a set of steps that takes you straight to the restaurant and you only have to cross 101 and not walk along it. This is awesome as major roads are normally a limiting factor with small kids getting places without a car.

The food and lunch at side door was hands down the best meals we have had in a long time. The restaurant has tall ceilings and lots of colorful art and plants around. The waitress is very attentive and gets the little dudes order in right away. We order the clams, and the crab blt and crab melt. All of the food was the best quality and so much crab. It was almost like too much crab on the sanwhiches.

After lunch we walk to the beach. We’re hoping to fly a kite, but it is not windy!! We also got a later start then we were hoping and are running out of daylight. We used the world mark hotel to access the beach. And it looked like a great place to stay.

Our first $100 hamburger trip with plane girl is complete. But it was more $100 crab sandwiches. We were so impressed how easy the access was to the restaurants and the beach, next time we come, we will stay the night!

secret staircase just across from the airport
fly your kite at the airport before take off
mount Rainer
mama-daughter snuggles
logging flight time

 

2017-08 KMYL (McCall, ID)

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We are on our way home and after a fun morning in Jackson Hole, we have a 3:30 flight to get home today, but, we’re going to break it up into 2 legs, and so we choose McCall, ID as our lunch stop.  We have been to McCall  before and know the lay of the land. Its less than a mile walk to Payette lake and there are some restaurants right across the street from the airport. We really just want to stretch our legs and take a break one more time before heading home for the night. We eat at the McCall Pancake House. They have very eclectic decor and huge portions. We then walk back to the airport and notice a shed for borrow bikes.. The Idaho Aviation Association has bikes to borrow at a few airports for pilots. I love the idea. We load up, get the prop turning and its just over an hour home. We land at Auburn with no incident. The kicker is we try to move the car from the hangar and it has a flat tire! But we will take it. Our first flight across the country and with 2 kids, lots of adventure and we end with a fat tire on the car. Thats a successful trip!

2017-08 KJAC (Jackson Hole, WY)

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We have left Rapid City and we only have one more night of our trip before we need to return home. We have 7 flight hours left on our journey, so we could go half way or we could go 1/3 of the way and just have a longer return day stopping for lunch on the way home. When you go home it is always such a relief and worth the longer leg. We have been to Jackson Hole once before and really enjoyed it and Grand Teton National Park, so we pick KJAC!

The Jackson Hole FBO is one of the nations “overcharging” FBO’s to general aviation pilots. There are fees for the fees. It’s so difficult to travel to these airports when you feel like they over change you for everything. More about excessive fees here on this AOPA article.

Even with the outrageous costs, we wish to visit Grand Teton National Park by way of the only FBO in Jackson Hole (which is the only airport in the US within a National Park) Our rental car was ordered from AVIS in the terminal and wasn’t at the FBO when we arrived as we requested from Avis. We requested it at a time in the central time zone, not computing that there was a 1 hour time change to mountain time. After we landed and the car was MIA, the FBO loaded us into a van to go over to the terminal and get the car. But when we walk into the terminal there is a line of at least 50 people to get a car. We abort. The savings aren’t worth dragging 2 kids around. We go back to the FBO and unload the van and settle for an overpriced rental car from Sixty.

After the rental car shuffle, we then make our way to the hotel. We love staying at historic hotels and lodges and The Wort Hotel just happened to have availability. We booked a hotel in the middle of town to enjoy walking around. We grab a quick snack and plan to arrive at the town square for the old west shootout which starts at 6pm nightly (except Sundays) during the summer. The shootout is said to be America’s longest running gunfight! Everyone gathers around one intersection that is blocked off to cars. We have a seat right up front. The Little Dude had a great time, Plane girl, not so much with the loud noises, but it was worth a try.

After the shoot out we go for a drive in the national park to see if we can find any wildlife at sunset. We try to goggle different areas known for wildlife but come up with just one moose in someone’s yard on the way back to the hotel.

In the morning we are rested and go back to Grand Teton NP, where we have picked out a short hike to take the kids on. We also ride the boat across Jenny Lake. One of the perks to having small children is getting to the park early and not having to fight for a parking spot. When we left at about 11am there were cars everywhere! We stop at the little village area in town to grab some snacks. We have about 3:30 hours of flying to go to our lunch stop before home.

 

The Little Dude cruises town on his strider

 

2017-08 KRAP (Rapid City, SD)

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We’ve passed the halfway mark between New York and Home and tonight we’ve decided to stay two nights in Rapid City, South Dakota, so we can visit Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore National Park is at the top our list of special places to visit because no one has been there in our family.

On the way there in-flight we have some decent cell service and mama pilot is able  to find a hotel. For the first time a Google Advertisment shows the Marriott Fairmont as suggestion and it has an indoor waterpark. Since we have been flying all day and are planning on staying two nights it looks like a great place to go to let the little dude swim and exercise.

We taxi up to the FBO and they pull out a  Chrysler Pacifica minivan. The little dude was so excited to have a TV in our rental car and it was perfect for adventures ahead. We check into the hotel and go straight to the waterpark. Some of the slides were a little big but the smaller area was perfect for The Little Dude to explore.

We woke up the next day and headed to Mount Rushmore. We also considered going to Crazy Horse as well after or try to see the Buffalo or to go to Badlands but we are just playing the day by ear. (the best one can really do with time changes, travel, and the volatility of a baby traveler) Mount Rushmore is part of the National Park system but you still have to pay $15 to park in addition to the monument fee if you have the pass to park a car.

We walk up and the monument is stunning; way larger than it appears online in photos.  After walking up and viewing at the large viewing area, you can walk around the monument and read different signs on the boardwalk learning about the presidents and the building process.  We walk through the visitor center and learn about the the construction of the monument and the Hall of Records. You can’t see the Hall of Records from the ground but you can from the air. (We flew back over the monument at the 2000 feet and were able to see it behind the presidents! *Bonus of being a plane family.)

After we left Mount Rushmore we did a little bit of T-shirt shopping in the town of Keystone. From Keystone it is east to Badlands or west to Crazy Horse, we chose Badlands!

It’s about. 2.5 hours drive to Badlands. We have a “movie car” so we were hoping The Little Dude stays entertained and Plane Girl, who is only 2 months old, will take a nap.

Badlands is an open area of rock formations. Travel South Dakota describes Badlands as “ An ancient sea floor rises and swallows the rolling plains. Colorful, dramatic and surreal, the sculptured pinnacles and painted gullies preserve the past in layers of colorful sediment.” We take The Badlands Loop Road and look at all the dramatic scenery. We really enjoyed the loop and all of the formations. We did see a ton of prarie dogs too.

After the drive we are done for the day!! Traveling with a baby and nursing means lots of breaks!! Back to the hotel pool to go swimming before calling it a night! We’re back in the air again the next day and want to head to a new place! We didn’t notice it on the way in, but the FBO has a kids playroom! What a dream come true for flying kids who need a few minutes to play.

 

Badlands
Entrance to Mount Rushmore
Boardwalkin’ the Badlands
Plains life
Badlands Sunflower
Miles of beautiful formations
The Dudes
The “other” Dudes

2017- 08 KFRM (Fairmont, MN)

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We wake in Peoria and decide to try to make it to Rapid City South Dakota where we can stay for 2 nights. It’s a bit of a trek so we plan a lunch stop in Fairmont, MN. Papa pilot has family roots in Fairmont and has visited there many times. The airport is small, with decent fuel prices and the golden egg of courtesy cars, an old police cruiser! We’re the only ones their it seems, but there is a line guy on staff. It is cold.  We load up the plane-kids in the car and drive out to lunch on a small lake at the marina lodge. We sit outside although it’s borderline too cold for it. Lunch was average but just enough to fill us up.

After lunch we drive over to the town cemetery to pay our respects to our family members.

We don’t want to stay too long as we still want to make it to Rapid City for the night and not have to dodge too many thunderstorms!