"Hello Eric. .. What are you doing tomorrow?"
"I'm meeting Frank in Middlebury at noon for brunch, why don't you join us?"
Ah, the start of another aeronautical adventure. Another nearly senseless misappropriation of a full day's discretionary time while spending a hundred dollars to have a simple meal. Brunch with old friends though, ... priceless!, I remind my wife.
This particular Middlebury is in Vermont, just east of the southern end of Lake Champlain. I had wanted to fly to that area for quite a while, and a short reunion with Frank and Eric made a perfect excuse. The three of us had spent several weeks together two summers ago when we went through the initial training for our new jobs as freight pilots. Eric flew from Plattsburg to Newark all that next winter, and we spent five nights a week together in the pilot room.
I was anxious to go flying on that Sunday too, because I was certain that the string of beautiful days and weeks that had run since April was coming to an end. A high pressure area was forecast to drift across the state during the day, assuring clear skies and gentle winds. A good destination, a good excuse, and a good day. Three of a kind always beats the Queen's beady stare.
The difference between flying for work and flying for fun was cast in a new light as I passed over the Mohawk river, and a layer of clouds started to separate me from the view of the ground below. Small and scattered at first, in another fifteen minutes they had knitted into a solid undercast. The forecast had said nothing about a layer of low clouds, and the large scale weather was guaranteed to be good, so I continued. I was certain that the clouds would break up by the time I reached Sacandaga Lake. in another twenty minutes.
It didn't, and it was an hour later before I again saw the ground. Glens Falls passed invisibly below me and had I turned north to Lake George before the clouds started to break up. A few years ago I would never have dreamed of continuing a long visual flight over an solid clouds in a simple plane such as mine, but things are different now. I noted that my turn indicator and handheld GPS were working, and did some other contingency planning.
After ascertaining that all I was betting was my arrival time at Middlebury, I sat back and let my gamble on better weather play itself out. I was amused to note that the plane now flew straighter because I was less distracted by the scenery below. It was, in fact, just like flying at work; watch the numbers, watch for traffic, and look at the pretty clouds. I was more relaxed here than I had been before the clouds found me.
My last view of the earth had been the fairly level and open ground of the Mohawk Valley. When I dropped below the clouds near Lake George, I was in a different place entirely. The world below was now filled with forested mountains which reached almost to the cloud bases in the distance. Scenery such as this was the reason I had wanted to make this particular trip for so long.
I flew up the lake, admiring its clear waters, interesting islands and the various resorts, cottages and lakeside retreats that were scattered along the shoreline and among the many islands. For the first time in years, I wished I was in a float plane; I could land, taxi up to an isolated island, and watch the morning clouds melt into a sunny noon while I listened to the waters lap at the shoreline. As I looked down, I could feel the peace and hear the little waves.
As I flew northward I began to understand the importance of the Champlain Valley in the Revolutionary War. It is broad and flat, a sharp contrast to the Adirondacks to the west and the Green Mountains of Vermont that rise abruptly on the east. It offered the British a fast route from Montreal to New York. Our fledgling navy saw much of its action not on the high seas, but on Lake Champlain.
On the return flight I followed less imposing terrain as I left the mountains. I flew south from Middlebury along the narrow sliver of Champlain which lays east of Lake George. From Whitehall I followed the Champlain Canal to Glens Falls, and then south to the Saratoga area where I turned east. This route is not as interesting as the more mountainous direct route, but offered plenty of choices below, should the engine falter.
It was a good day. I got up, went flying, and arrived home just in time to sit down to a barbecued steak dinner that my daughter had prepared. I spent six hours in the airplane, and felt that another hour would have killed or at least crippled me; the airplane was built for people as they were sized in 1940. Had I traveled by car though, I would have spent twelve hours making the trip and ended up just as uncomfortable after sitting so long and attending to the more demanding tasks of driving.
And incidentally, I enjoyed a leisurely Sunday brunch with my friends.
A picture taken through the windshield en route to Middlebury. The clouds cover the ground below me and a broken layer is way above. I was confident that these were "fair weather" clouds, and I knew that I had an "out", so I continued.
Notrhbound over the Champlain valley after leaving the clouds behind. A spectacular morning with a shallow layer of cumulus clouds resting above the Green Mountains in the distance to the east.