After gaining some experience, and getting a little bored of the local area, I decided to make a cross country trip that would take me almost 110 miles away from my home field of Oakdale. I took some time to prepare for this trip, doing route planning with my sectional map and planning my fuel stops. The first stop was going to be Rio Vista, some 57 miles away from Oakdale, with an alternate field about 15 miles closer in case fuel was running short. My range is normally about 65 miles, so it really depends on the winds whether I make it or not.

I get myself and plane ready, and take off early in the morning. I slowly keep climbing as I leave the Oakdale area, and then maintain altitude at 3000 feet just as I am south of Stockton. I have a great view from up here! Not a cloud in the sky, and I can see the Sierras behind me and the coastal range from left to right in front of me for many, many miles.

I am now getting within a few miles of Rio Vista airport, so I keep an eye out for any other traffic that might be in the area. None so far, so I get closer to the airport and start my descent to pattern altitude. As I get closer to the ground, I notice how much the winds aloft must be changing, because I can see the difference in my ground tracking. I get just beyond the end of the runway, and turn to enter the pattern. The runway speeds by as I am almost to the numbers in no time! I turn on base leg and notice that I'm almost facing the same direction as the runway and barely making any headway! What a wind! I finally get lined up with the numbers, even though they are almost straight down, and I cut the power to make my final descent to landing. I nose the plane down to maintain 45MPH and watch the runway. I feel like a helicopter as I descend almost straight down with very little forward ground movement. As I am nearing the runway, I'm thinking how strange this is, my airspeed says 45 and I'm barely moving over the ground. At the last 5 feet, I begin my flare, and still can't get over how weird this feels! I make a good landing and roll to a stop. Hmmm, 5-10 feet. No wonder I feel like a helicopter.

I taxi up to the fuel pumps and tie my plane down so I can refuel. I look at the time and realize I flew all the way here in only an hour! Since my plane normally cruises at 40, I had one heck of a tailwind getting here, which I thought was interesting because the winds were blowing the other way near the ground. 15 minutes later I am ready to go. I taxi out to take off, holding the controls tight, so the wind doesn't tip me while taxiing. I get out to the runway, line up, push the throttle to full power and I am off the ground within a few feet. Man! The wind must be 25MPH here! I climb to cruise altitude and notice as I am climbing how my groundspeed changes. Back to 3000 feet and on to the next leg, Sonoma Valley airport. I have Travis AFB to my right, and Concord to my left as I fly towards Napa. I've seen a lot of this before from the ground, but never like this! As I continue on, more and more of the Bay Area comes into view. Just as I am flying over Napa, I can see quite a bit of San Francisco, the Golden Gate bridge, and alot of other cities in that area.

I make my descent and land at Sonoma, get some more fuel, and climb for the hop over a set of foothills. As I get to the top, I look over and can see Petaluma! I get into the pattern and land, taxiing up near the cafe there, the TwoNiner Diner. I tie down and go in. Nice little place with WWII pictures of navy pilots and carriers adorning the walls. After lunch it's time to head back, so off I go in pretty much the reverse of the trip getting here. It was still windy at Rio Vista when I landed there for fuel in the afternoon. I decided to take advantage of that wind to get home, and only cruised at 1000 feet the rest of the way home. As I entered familiar territory once again, I could relax a bit and reflect on this flight. Yes, quite fun! I'll have to do this again, maybe next week-end!