Jim and Joel are having a BLAST! New photo of crazy Horse at bottom!!

Hello everybody!
A quick update on our progress.  After being escorted out of the area by Kevin and his shiny new 180 we promptly flew into foul weather.  We dodged rain showers before landing at Eufaula to check the radar and then continued to Pine Mountain where their radar was down.  Cloudy and hazy skies between there and Scottsboro where we had lunch, got gas and did some more radar checking before continuing on to Tell City.  The grey skies remained with us until half way between Scottsboro and Tell City (that's TELL City with a "T").  Joel's friend Pat picked us up and treated us very well during our stay.  The trip from Tell City to Davenport was especially nice due to a brisk tailwind and clear skies the whole way.   Today we visited the John Deere World Headquarters and learned the history behind the green machines and the John Deere company.  Following lunch we visited the Rock Island Arsenal and visited a Confederate cemetary with 2000 graves of soldiers who died in the Rock Island Confederate Prisoner of War Camp.  We stopped by a river boat casino for a cup of joe (free!) and Bob showed us how to play the nickle slots.  On the last pull of our dollar
investment I won a little over ten bucks by getting four out of five bars.  Tomorrow is Joel's reunion and then Friday we leave for the farm just East of Soux Falls where Joel learned (?) to fly.
Your intrepid travelers,
Jim & Joel

A quick update before sleepy time...
We have been in Larchwood, IA for the past couple of days staying with some of Joel's relatives on the Zanger farm/airport.  Flew to a pancake breakfast this morning in South Dakota (Tea, SD) and then drove into Sioux Falls to see the sites and some of Joel's old stomping grounds.  Weather has been really nice since leaving the south, glad to leave the wet stuff behind.  We are flying to another breakfast tomorrow morning (Yankton, SD) before continuing on to Custer.  We plan to follow the Missouri River for a while along the way. This river separates South Dakota from Nebraska and was traveled by Louis and Clark.  Talked to Dick and Howard earlier and they only made it from Barksdale to Salina, KS after a late start due to low ceilings this morning.  They didn't get into the air until around 2 pm.  That's it for now...
Jim & Joel





Had a great couple of days.  We left the Sioux Falls area yesterday morning and flew with Joel's cousin Jim to Yankton, SD for a fly-in breakfast.  We then followed the Missouri River west towards the Badlands of South Dakota and the Black Hills.  At the same time, Dick and Howard were working their way north from Kansas to meet us in Custer.  When we were well over 200 miles out we heard Dick calling us on the radio!  We swapped position information and arrival times and continued along our way.  It was especially nice overflying the Badlands where I dropped down and got some photos of the rugged terrain.  Dick and Howard had already arrived at Custer and were waiting at the airport with a rented van.  We checked in at the hotel and then headed out to see Crazy Horse being carved out of a mountain.  The weather started to deteriorate with low clouds and occasional rain.  After some further exploration and food consumption we called it a day.  Today we explored the Needles Highway, Deadwood, Mount Rushmore, a wood carving museum and the Tatanka exhibit that Kevin Costner created focusing on the bison and it's role in the Black Hills.  Tomorrow it is on to Denver for a couple of days before turning east and the journy home...
Jim, Joel, Dick & Howard

Having arrived yesterday, this was our last day in the Denver Area.  We left Custer yesterday morning and said goodbye to Crazy Horse before turning south.  Visibility was not near as good up to this point so I didn't take many pictures while enroute to Denver.  Dick and Howard took point in the RV-6 and relayed weather reports back to Joel and I plodding along in our 150's.  Joel's friend Charles met us at Platte Valley and we got the planes put to bed before visiting to a very nice World War I air museum located at the airport (The LaFayette Foundation Vintage Aero Flying Museum).  Today was mostly rainy and overcast and we visited the Forney Museum of Transportation and the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum, both of which were surprisingly extensive and complete.  If the weather will cooperate, Joel and I will start our journey east tomorrow (Wednesday) morning while Dick and Howard travel south to Buena Vista to visit Frank and Linda Carpenter.  Hopefully we will push that nasty weather in the southeast out to sea and be back home on Saturday or Sunday.  If not, it may require an extra day of vacation time....
Jim, Joel, Dick & Howard

Just a quick update...
We left the Denver area on Thursday and flew to Bartlesvill, OK where we spent the night.  Yesterday we ran into patches of ground fog here and there until around 2 pm when we hit the back side of the front moving east.  We set down in Yazoo City, MS and have not been able to proceed since then.  If the visibility improves this afternoon we will see if it is possible to get out of here.  Hard to believe that after flying thousands of miles on this trip, we are less than 350 miles from home and we are stuck in a place with Yazoo in it's name.  Go figure...
Jim & Joel