Jay,

I have been to Oshkosh for 5 years now (not all in a row), but this
was the first time that I flew in rather than going commercial. I
flew with my friend and business partner in his Kitfox 7A all the way
from Caldwell Idaho (EUL). It was a long 14 hour trip each way, and
there is definitely not enough padding in his seat cushions! My butt
kept falling asleep after each 3 to 4 hour leg, and I had to get out
and walk around and stretch just to get the circulation flowing
again... ugh!

We flew EUL to RKS for the first leg. Taking off at RKS at noon in
90F temps at 6800 feet was a challenge as we clawed our way back up to
9500 feet. It was a bit bumpy over Wyoming, but it smoothed out over
Nebraska. We had enough fuel left at Scottsbluff NE that we decided
we could push on to Norfolk NE but soon changed our minds when a
scattered layer we were flying over started to become an undercast...

We put down at the Hooker County NE airport only to find out there
were no services, but a nice man in a big red pickup pulled up as we
got out and offered us fuel from a tank in his shed hangar. He
charged use the rate we had paid in Rock Springs for 15 gallons of
100LL and we got back up in the air with enough fuel to be able to
deal with the layer. After talking with a nice lady on flight watch I
found out that the layer wasn't as bad as it looked and was breaking
up as it flowed North, so we pressed on. About 100 miles from
Norfolk, we saw one last big hole so we opted to desend there, and got
down to 2000 AGL with clouds about 1000 feet above our heads. Being a
mountain west pilot, I am not used to that murky fish bowl effect in
the midwest. Add to that a low angle sun and the overcast made it
very dim and dreary as we flew the last 100 miles to Norfolk. I
really appreciated Mike's KMD150 with all the 1500' towers that sprout
up in that part of the country. We gave them a wide berth.

We landed at Norfolk about an hour or so before sunset. A couple of
plane spotters at the airport told us that they saw us coming in from
several miles out because of our LED recognition lights that we were
running full time. They gave us pointers on where we could spend the
night in Norfolk, so after refueling the plane from the self-serve
pump, we took a cab to a really nice new hotel there in town and spent
the night. Norfolk NE is a nice small midwest town, and the people
there were very nice. I'd stop there again.

We got up before dawn and left Norfolk at 6:30 AM with a 2000 foot
ceiling and 10 miles visibility in haze. We flew East toward Cedar
Rapids until we found a nice big hole and climbed up above a thin
veiled layer that we could see down through. I had checked the
satellite map and knew that the warm front between us and Iowa wasn't
very wide, so we started up toward 11,500 as we saw some build-ups
ahead of us. We climbed as high as 12,000 feet to wend our way around
the build-ups, but could still see the ground down though canyons in
the clouds. Soon we were past the narrow ridge of build-ups and
flying over a downward sloping cloud bank toward the clear skies over
Iowa. We flew into Marion airport outside of Cedar Rapids where we
refueld and were met by Mike's adult kids who were going to drive to
Oshkosh to help us exhibit.

We flew into Oshkosh Saturday morning. About 100 miles out we had a
flight of 5 T-6's pass left to right a quarter mile in front of us 500
feet higher than our crusing altitude... wow! Then we crossed the
mighty Mississippi into Wisconsin. Getting close to Ripon we dropped
down to 2000 feet. A Bonanza passed over us as it overtook us from
behind and to our right. I spotted its shadow before I actually saw
it. The Kitfox has acrylic doors and turtle deck, so we had excellent
visibility when made looking for traffic much easier. We followed the
Bonanza in from Ripon but didn't see anyone else (about 12:15). We
had someone about 1/2 mile behind us as it turned out. The Fisk
controller called us out a couple of miles from Fisk as a high wing
with blue stripes and flashing lights. After that, we flew the
approach and landing on runway 36L and taxiied to the North Aircraft
exhibit area to our space right behind Velocity.

It wasn't nearly as scary getting in as I had feared, but I know
Sunday is a lot worse.

We departed at about 5:30pm on Sunday and flew two hours to Rochester
MN where we spent the night (another nice small midwestern town). We
got up and took off at 6:30AM on Monday and flew to Huron SD for fuel,
then to Rapid City SD for fuel, passed Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse
monuments (wow, Crazy Horse is going to be HUGE! Bigger than all four
heads on Rushmore), passed Casper WY and again landed in Rock
Springs. Departing Rock Springs at 4:30PM was another long struggle
up to 10,500 where the air temp dropped from 93 to only 68. From
there we flew to Pocatello then on to Caldwell.

BTW, if you have never seen craters of the moon national monument from
the air, its a very unique sight... we had a great view both going
and coming as we flew across Southern Idaho.

Here is an observation from a mountain west pilot: its much easier to
track your progress visually in the mountains where the terrain
features are more unique and distinct than it is over the midwest
where you have endless miles of flat rectangular fields...

Dean