Day 1: Great Barrington, MA to Clarion, PA.

Farm Pond.  I often wonder why I leave...

Finally packed up and ready to go, I was ready to break the chain to the ground, being ready enough.  There is always more things to do but I was ready enough and the clock is ticking.  But it's always hard to leave family and friends and the comfort of home (and Farm Pond!)

All fueled and ready!

The goal is to get to Denver, CO to see my brother, Chad, play with his band, Dispatch, at the Ogden (Thursday night) and then Red Rocks (Friday night), which I've never been to.  The weather didn't cooperate this spring, so I'm having my flying expedition now.

Over 105 degrees.

Sweating it out.

92 degrees today in western mass, meant that it was 105 degrees in the cockpit.  Sweating bullets, I was very happy to get into the cooler sky, where it was a pleasant 70 at 4,500 feet.

This pic was taken over Pennsylvania.  After flying towards the sun all afternoon, I was struck by the amazing thing that we live on a planet near a star.  How lucky we are to exist on such a cool planet.

I landed after 2+ hours in Clearfield, PA but they didn't have self-serve fuel and I didn't want to wait for the services to open up, so I headed on to Clarion, PA, where I've landed many times before.  Got in as it was getting dark.  Had to click the mic seven times to turn on the runway lights.  Such a beautiful sight to see all the lights turn on.

All parked, and flights entered into the various logs.  I'll sleep outside tonight and hope the bugs aren't too bad.  Under the wing, looking up at the stars.  It's always hard to leave home, and I sometimes wonder why I do, but I usually find the answer out here.  Happy to be out and about in the world.  Saw the space station fly overhead as I was parking Freddy.

Hope to fly a good distance tomorrow.  Lots of daylight being so near to the summer solstice.  

A Star Wars sunset.  Looking for the other star in the binary system...