Flight to Florida -- The Cure for Winter

6 days, 16.5 hours of flying, 2500 miles, all VFR. The perfect escape from a
brutal Iowa winter!

Here are few PIREPS from the journey:

- Thanks to great weather and a nice tailwind, I climbed to 5500 feet,
leveled out -- and never changed course or altitude again till we touched
down 4.8 hours later. We could easily have made Florida in five hours
non-stop, a new record for us.

- Following Jim Burns' advice, we stopped short in Bay-Minett, Alabama for
fuel. This is a WONDERFUL place to stop, with a great FBO, incredibly
helpful and friendly people, reasonably priced MOGAS (thank God!), and nice
long runways. Tanking up there saved us over $100 compared to Pensacola
fuel prices.

- Pensacola has a nice airport, but I'm really glad we stopped short in
Bay-Minett to buy fuel. The folks in Pensacola barely looked up from their
paper, didn't have a line-guy tell us where to park, didn't move a muscle to
help us carry a ton of luggage (or offer a cart), didn't tie us down, and
generally regarded us as a somewhat amusing nuisance on their ramp. We won't
return.

- The Naval Aviation Museum at the Pensacola Naval Air Station is fantastic.
The fact that the Navy moved the old Cubi Bar from our now-abandoned Subic
Bay Naval Base in the Philippines -- and I mean EVERYTHING, from the
squadron plaques right down to the barstools -- made it all the better. This
museum was the last one of our "must-see-before-we die" aviation museums in
the US -- now we have to start on Europe.

- St. Petersburg's downtown airport, Albert Whittig, is every bit as cool as
Meigs Field in Chicago was! Landing on that little 2800 foot by 100 foot
wide runway, I was surprised to see SAILBOATS at the end of the runway! And,
yes, they were in the water. Precision is rewarded.

- St. Pete's Beach, on a little barrier island in the Gulf, just off-shore
from St. Petersburg, is an outstanding place to recover from winter. I
wouldn't want to live there, but miles of white sand beach and mid-80s sure
felt good.

- Thanks to Jim, who's as Irish as they come, we managed to find not one
but TWO great Irish pubs (one in Pensacola, one in St. Pete) where we could
celebrate St. Patty's day, his birthday, and their wedding anniversary.
Another great use for the internet!

- Muscle Shoals, AL is always a nice place to stop for fuel. Great,
under-utilized facility, nice people, relatively cheap fuel. We always stop
there on our way back from Florida.

- Spirit of St. Louis has a nice airport, and the Jet Corp FBO is extremely
nice -- but they are used to the jet crowd. We paid $5.20 per gallon for
100LL! Next time, we won't simply taxi into the closest FBO when there are
several to choose from. (We knew when we saw the *free* Starbucks coffee
and individually custom wrapped, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies that we
were in for a world of hurt -- but it sure was a nice place.)

- The flooding in Missouri was incredible. After flying over a "normal"
Mississippi River one day, and then (just 5 days later) flying over after
15" of rain, the difference was amazing. We saw many isolated farmhouses,
and lots of Coast Guard helicopter performing rescue work. (They were
staging out of KSUS)

- If you've never been to City Museum in St. Louis, make plans now. This
was our third visit, and we always leave wanting more. It's an
indescribable place, sorta like a museum on acid -- but where else would
they stick an old LearJet on a four story pole, and then weld up re-bar
coils to let kids (and us bigger kids) safely climb up to it?

Florida ain't cheap, but, boy did it feel good to hit the beach for a day or
two. We made it down in record time (thanks to our 84 gallon fuel load) and
truly enjoyed a few days away from the late-winter Midwest.

Click to view pix from our flight:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/2008_florida_trip.htm

Blue skies!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"