commercial cross country

beer? check. shower? check. warmed over pizza while watching futurama? check and check. $800+ less in my bank account? ugh, check. yup, this is the aftermath of my commercial cross country which I flew today. here's the flightplan in skyvector. (if it doesn't show up, just move the map a smidge)

It was a great trip despite two near misses - one a cherokee not on with ATC who decided to make a sudden turn into my path, and a corporate jet passing under me by barely 500 feet (thanks for letting me know, NY approach control.) the feeling of that much flying - 6 even hours on the hobbs, and the distance flown made me want to do it all over again. I thought i'd be bored, hungry, need to pee, etc...but not at all - just a great long VFR flight to a lot of new places.

and some shots;

the clouds were at the most innappropriate level - 5500-6000, so i bounced from 4500 to 6500 the whole way:

approaching Newburgh, NY:

here's aeroflex andover airport  (12N) at the end of that lake, and the Stillwater VOR (STW) just at the bottom of the pic:

finally, I made it to KZER!

stopped in for some quick refreshments:

and talked to one of the CFI's there - cool guy. He ran to get the phone about 15 minutes after I landed...asked me if I was N238ND...oops...forgot to close the flight plan in all the excitement!

Leaving Joe Zerbey airport (KZER):

This is Summit Hill, PA; where the graveyard is almost as big as the town itself...I imagine this will be ground zero of the zombie apocolypse:

BEHOLD! the Lehigh Gap!!!

amid the swarms of gliders I was calling out for Allentown approach control, here's a fire just south of Stroudsberg on the Appalachian Trail. If you look at the shadow on the right it looks like a giant eagle took a steaming crap on the mountain:

aaaaaand, Aeroflex Andover on the way back:

Waterbury Ct, starting to approach Hartford Brainard Airport (KHFD):

this is New Britain, Ct - I lived in the brick buildings in the lower corner of this graveyard 11 or 12 years ago in college. 625 Burrit Street - the amazing flooding basement cave!

and here's my favorite picture of the whole trip - Hartford, Ct. while on right downwind for runway 20 at KHFD, my second stop on the trip:

to my surprise, while inbound to hartford, I heard an old tail number, N4336E, I used to fly back in Northampton days in 2000 (while living at 625 burrit street, as a matter of fact...weird conincidence) who was coming for touch and goes at the airport. it's the plane taxiing in the middle:

after tallying up the logbook and taking a 15 minute break, I headed back to KBED. as I neared Boston I took this one last picture approaching our fair city:

life in part 61 training continues...