I’m terrible at keeping you all (does anyone actually read this?  doubtful.) up to date.  I’m sorry.

I flew to Rochester, New York for the July 4th holiday, but I didn’t take a commercial airliner.  I flew myself.  21.3 hours of time logged in a little PA28-161.  Was one of my best flight experiences so far.  Going up was easy; the weather was very cooperative.  Going back down again proved quite a challenge, but one that I’m glad to say I rose up to and conquered.

From ROC to LBE was easy VFR -- I just got on top of it all immediately after leaving ROC. That was early enough that the clouds hadn't really finished building. LBE wasn't my intended first stop -- I had planned to go 60nm more to MGW, but my bladder as previously noted was not cooperating. I refueled at LBE and then planned to continue to FLO, but just past MGW I saw myself running into a wall of solid IMC, so I did a little anti-get-there-itis self-check, and turned around and went back to MGW, where I watched a little TV and waited on the weather.

I watched things move a little bit at MGW for about 2 hours, and then spent 35 minutes on the phone with a weather briefer who was exceptionally outstanding. She even helped me reconfigure my planned route to make it a bit more westerly to avoid the junk that was still sitting along the east.

For the MGW to FLO trip, I did pick up VFR flight following because I was expecting marginal VFR, which I did run into almost immediately after leaving MGW. Out the front and left wing were extremely hazy (and indeed I wound up getting rained on), but I could still see for several miles out the right side which helped as far as a visual reference to the horizon was concerned. I just made sure I was above the MEF for that area of the sectional and everything went fine, though I did have to make a circle to the west around an intense rainstorm which caused IMC.

At that point I passed through it all into some beautiful VFR around the southern end of Virginia/northern end of North Carolina, which I enjoyed for about 125nm as I cruised along at about 1500 AGL (which in that area is 6500 MSL) to enjoy the mountain views. Unfortunately as I neared the bottom end of NC the weather deteriorated again. I tried my earlier VFR-on-top business, but that failed as the cumulus clouds had at that point grown much too tall. I saw a nice hole below, and told Atlanta Center I was going to try to go under it instead. Unfortunately, that hole led straight to a mountain valley, which the cloud itself had actually fallen into. And now I had gone and trapped myself in this little VMC pocket surrounded by clouds. While executing a steep turn to avoid leaving the pocket while I considered my options, I inadvertently wound up in one of the clouds at the edge of the VMC pocket. I reasoned that if I just kept this turn going I would eventually return to my original position, which I did -- though accidentally poking my nose into a cloud whilst in the middle of a steep turn was definitely not the most stress-free thing I've ever done.

Once I got out of that little poof of visible water, I realized I was again in danger of succumbing to get-there-itis and considered turning back, but then I saw it: a path that looked like it had been placed there just for me, to climb to VFR-on-top. I told center I found it and was going for it, abandoning my plans to make it to the BURCH intersection (there was no way I was going to get there) and using this VFR-on-top I had found to head direct GSO, which I did. From GSO to FLO was a straight shot of lovely late-afternoon VFR, so I continued on to FLO and refueled.

At FLO, I called the director of maintenance at my FBO to make sure he was OK with that plane being flown at night, as he had asked. I then checked the weather and was pleased to find that all the junk in the sky was continuing to blow westward, and my route to MLB had become perfectly clear. I got a weather briefing, and set off, whereupon I was able to snap this for you all:

It really was a great time.  If you’re interested in seeing more pictures of the whole trip, check out my Photography section to see the whole set.