June 27, 2007

7AM, up and time to get in the five minute window.  Chris has noon in the Plane Availability Pool and I have 10AM.  Todays flight plan calls for Palm Springs direct to Bullhead City.  Lunch with Robyn and Marilyn.  Following lunch we fly the very specific FAA controlled route through and around the Grand Canyon before heading on to Moab and the Red Cliff Lodge.  It is going to be a long day in the air.  Unfortunately we have had to drop Sedona from our schedule.

At 10:30 we drove over to the Signature office and they took us to the maintenance facility.  They had just finished the door and were in the process of making the log entry.  We jumped in the plane taxied back to the Signature.  I went to get the car, drove it on the tarmac next to the plane, loaded the plane up and the flightline guy took the car back to Hertz.  Flying in your own plane is a definite advantage.  By 11:33AM we were in the air and on our way to beautiful Bullhead City Arizona by the River.  Did I mention it is hot?  Hot is naturally a relative term, what is hot to one is not necessarily hot to another.  109 on the tarmac at Palm Springs at 11:30AM.  But wait, this was only the beginning.  113 degrees on the tarmac at Bullhead.  After we had lunch with Robyn and Marilyn at the Golden Nugget they were going to walk out on the tarmac, roughly 70 yards, to see the plane.  Ten yards into it they called it quits.  It was hot by anyones definition.  They pulled over to the side of the road that runs parallel to the taxi way and waved as we took off.

From Bullhead we had the long leg up to Canyonlands and Moab.  We flew by way of the Grand Canyon.  What a view that is as you go floating over the canyon with all of the colors and the great landscapes.  We flew a little to the south of El Tovar on the South Rim.  The FAA has very specific corridors that general aviation aircraft must fly through.  Happily there was not much tourism in the area so we did not have to contend with any other traffic other that a helicopter well below us.  Our assigned altitude through this corridor (Dragon Corridor)was 10,500 ft.  Nice and cool up there, 70 degrees.

We landed in Moab right on time at 7PM local.  We picked up one hour in the time zone change.  After a quick tour of the main town we drove the 18 miles out to the Red Cliffs Lodge.  This is a place everyone should see once before they leave this earth.  I have been to a number of really pretty places over the last 60 years but to date this takes the cake.  You just simply cannot imagine how pretty it is here.  The Red Cliffs Ranch has been the setting four a vast number of movies, everything from John Wayne Westerns to Back to the Future and Indiana Jones,  Not to mention TV shows and hundreds of print adds using the area as backdrop.  The Lodge has a museum with all of the Hollywood pictures and posters.

Chris and I had dinner outside on the porch looking over the Colorado River on an absolutely clear night with a full moon.  A little humidity in the air but a warm evening and no bugs.  Chris found out that this lodge has only been here since 2002.  This guy has a gold mine.  Long day in the air, bed time now.