A Flight Home from Heaven

All in all, we had a wonderful weekend in the Pacific Northwest. I love that I got to bring Hubby with me for the long holiday. We enjoyed lots of blackberries and lots of downtown Seattle.

And I was really struggling with the fact that we would soon be trapped inside once again instead of able to explore outside during the months of summer.

Do we have to go home to the extreme heat?!

This pretty Citation was here for the weekend, too. If I had my own airplane, I would make sure that I was at the Blackberry Festival each and every year.

If only for that cobbler at the Bremerton Bar and Grill! Holy smokes!

Apparently, I lost the thumb wrestling to be able to stay. We are off and on our way home! It’s about noon when our passengers arrive.

Goodbye, Avian Flight Center! I hope to see you again soon.

Soon we were airborne, and departing this runway gave me the chance to take some pictures of downtown Bremerton where we had just spent such a lovely weekend.

Can you see the aircraft carriers? Our hotel was just on the other side of them. Can’t you hear the festival music? It’s still going on today. Those Bremertonians know how to par-tay!

Here is a closer look over the aircraft carriers that are retired in this shipyard. It’s pretty neat to see them from this view so we can notice the runway markings on top of each ship!

And here is an aerial view of Bremerton. I forget how big it is because I am always on foot and, thus, stay close to the harbor.

I love days like these when you can see for quite a distance. I guess that is a rare event in these parts, huh?

We were soon leaving the Puget Sound behind.

And we soon had Mount Hood in sight. What a gorgeous view as we continued on our trek southeast!

We climbed all the way up to FL430 today for our flight home. With six people in the back, Gladys still climbed well. It’s because of the cooler temperatures, which I won’t experience again for who-knows-how-long.

This is a small cloud, but we ran into some big, ugly clouds just north of Scottsdale. It was awful. We got a little too close for my taste. I hate when weather cramps my style.

With a beautiful Challenger 300 in the foreground, you can see the mess that we had to pick our way through to arrive today. It wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped.

Yuck.

But we did make it. And soon we were taxiing past the tower on our way to park at the hangar.

Lots of big, pretty boys (like Gulfstream IVs) come into this airport. This is the corporate airport for the entire valley, and most private jets land here for their bosses to explore the Valley of the Sun.

I’m still having to pinch myself that this guy got to come along. It made my weekend so much better to have him with me, and we really enjoyed our time together. Since we never get to travel to places with each other, this weekend was a real treat.

Thanks be to my bosses for allowing it to happen, and to Hubby for wanting to go.