On September 3, 2010 Woody Harris and I Left northern California with a pair of Zodiac XL-Bs bound for Kittie Hill (77T) north of Austin Texas. Woody had agreed to deliver a Zodiac to its owner. The Zodiac had been upgraded by Dug Dugger at Quality Sport Planes in Cloverdale California. I tagged along for fun and to give Woody a ride home in my Zodiac.

We chose to take the scenic route, flying the 3,434 statue miles in 6 days. We visited or flew near the following areas of interest:

1) St. George, UT
2) Zion National Park, UT
3) Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, UT
4) Vermilion Cliffs Monument, AZ
5) Marble Canyon, UT
6) Lake Powell, AZ
7) Monument Valley, UT
8) Four corners (Where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah come together)
9) Shiprock, NM
10) Angel Fire, NM
11) Carlsbad, NM
12) Very Large Array, NM
13) Painted Desert (Petrified Forest) National Park, AZ
14) Meteor Crater, AZ
15) Sedona, AZ

It was a fantastic trip but not without problems. We escaped Texas a mere 45 minutes before a massive storm hit the area. We dodged massive thunder storms in New Mexico and Arizona and worst of all, the ignition system on my Jabiru engine became unreliable half way through the trip. The engine would run rough below 1,500 RPM on the right mag. We changed spark plugs and a rotor and cap on one distributor but the problem persisted. Because the right mag continued to worked ok above 1,500 RPM and because the left mag was just fine, we continued on but bypassed some of the rugged terrain we had planned to fly over on the way home (Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and a second trip over the Sierra Nevada mountains).

Because pictures uploads are throttled, I will upload pictures over the next several days.

Steve