RV7 Flight: Saskatchewan, Part 3

When the weather was good enough to fly home on Tuesday, though it was cloudless in Montana, it was still only marginal in Canada. It was so hazy that visibility was limited, but enough, as long as the clouds didn't turn to fog and sock us in. That would've been big trouble. We flew only about 800 feet above ground level, which is a couple thousand feet lower than the altitude at which we normally fly. 

It was also mildly turbulent, however as we crossed over into Montana, and the low clouds gave way to higher, cumulus clouds, the turbulence increased ten-fold. Or it felt like that much. I used to get sick regularly in our Maule, due to a variety of reasons, however I have never been sick in the RV-7 ... until Tuesday. 

The big problem was that we couldn't land at just any nearby airport, assuming there were airports below us somewhere. We needed to go through U.S. Customs, and that can only happen at certain airports. We had to get back to Great Falls for that. And so ... ugh ... for 40 minutes, I was doing everything I could to keep from barfing. 

At one point, I wadded up my flannel shirt and tried to barf into it. My stomach was empty, so there was no inaugural mess. (No one's ever barfed in the RV-7.) Hubby doesn't get airsick, which is super fortunate, because he had all he could do to keep the airplane flying straight and level. 

Our Av-Map was estimating our time of arrival at Great Falls to be 1:11 pm MDT. I was hoping it would be inaccurate, and we would land a little ahead of schedule. But no. It was dead on. We touched down at 1:11 pm. 

We went directly to Customs, which didn't hassle us, and then we walked to the big terminal and  ate a hamburger lunch. We both felt better after eating and walking around for a while. We remained on the ground for three hours, waiting for our lunch to settle before we braved going up into the turbulent air again. 

Our little airplane with a table top rock mountain in the background. The table top rock is about 40 miles away. 

When we got back into the air, it didn't seem quite as turbulent. The picture above is a long ridge or mountain range that marks the eastern side of the Continental Divide. The next two hours of the flight, we flew over mountains. It was too bouncy to read, but I didn't get sick, and I took a few more pictures. 

Here, we're approaching a pretty snow-capped mountain and lake. 

Here, we're a little closer to the mountain and lake. 

By the time we reached this point in our journey, hubby was psyched. He'd been running on adrenaline the whole time we were in the air, both on our way into Canada and on our way home from Canada. 

After spending so much time outside of his flying comfort zone, he had learned a lot; he had grown a lot of new piloting skills. He was so psyched, that he felt he had the energy to fly to Seattle that very evening. Or in the very least, to the Arlington, WA, fly-in on Friday. Or to Denver to visit my brother in the coming weeks. 

I was only a passenger, but it was quite an adventure. Despite all our troubles, we had a ball.