Pirep: Pullman-Moscow, WA

2.1 hours from Troutdale to Pullman at 120 KIAS, thanks to a gracious
tailwind.
Pullman-Moscow is a nontowered airfield, 6,700'x100' at 2,553' field elev
with a Horizon terminal, so you end up in the pattern on CTAF with jet
traffic.

The runway is great but the taxiway is in disrepair. In fact, there was a
crew working on it when I arrived. The transient tiedown area looked like a
mall parking lot on Christmas Eve; everybody parked every which way, people
standing around with no apparent business there. Through the silvery heat
rising from the old asphalt, what looked like tie-down tees were actually
weeds growing through cracks in the pavement. The striping itself was
invisible and there was more of it, but that section of transient parking
was blocked off by roadcones.

"542, are you lost?" came the call on CTAF. Affirmative. Finally, a
teenage kid came out and vectored me between two planes with perhaps a feet
of clearance off of each of my wingtips, and then directed me to turn 180
degrees. The problem was that a family was eating McDonald's off the tail
of their airplane, looking at me like "don't you dare."

Finally I just stopped where I was and the kid was at my window before the
prop had even stopped. "Right there's fine," he said. Thanks. I asked
for fuel and he balked. "Well, okay...I guess I can get you fuel if you
really need it." Then he was up on the strut checking my fuel quantity.

There was no particular reason -not- to fuel up except that 110LL was $3.20
a gallon, I had 75% fuel on board and was halfway done with the trip. Plus,
was loading on three adults (C-172 180HP with long-range tanks) at 2550 MSL
on a hot afternoon. Well, I won't make that mistake again because As soon
as we got to altitude on the way home the guagues indicated less than half
each and we were flying into a headwind. Even though I had visually checked
fuel moments earlier and could poke my little finger into the tanks and hit
gas, it's discomforting to be 50% of the way indicating 50% fuel.

So I spent 2.6 hours flying home eyeballing the fuel guages, which settled
on a quarter tank after bouncing from F to E for the first half hour. Then,
they didn't move at all from their position at about 30% for the rest of the
flight. I knew I had about two hours of reserve onboard, but what a
distraction. I set for best cruise and leaned the mixture regularly, and
since I could see Mt Hood 200 miles out, I amended my return course: Aim
straight for the mountain and hang a right at the river! I think that's
called "old school."

The flight itself was turbulence free with a full moon illuminating the
Columbia River along the way and two of my passengers fell asleep despite
never having flown in a small airplane before. The other peered out the
window and expressed disappointment that the flight was finally over.

Nice flight. Next time, I will add 8 gallons (1 hr burn rate) of fuel at the
Pullman FBO (Inter-State Aviation) and if the pump jock doesn't like it, too
bad.

-c