Race day 3 - Vectors Wild 3, mother nature 1

Since we had an entire day on the ground yesterday, we all got up at 5am and arrived at Goodland airport at 6am sharp, in time for a 630am engines on start in order of our arrival at Goodland. In sharp contrast to Wednesday's weather, the sky was blue and clear without a breath of wind. The wind forecast was still very confusing in back of the front that passed through yesterday, so Linda and I took a calculated risk and climbed (very) high for some small tailwinds we thought we could find up there. We did not have them for as long as we would have liked.... But it was a very pretty leg with the blue skies and the fields stretching as far as you could see. We chose to fly legs 4 and 5 in one shot, so we headed North, and did the flyby at David City Nebraska without stopping for fuel, and zoomed straight on for Watertown South Dakota. We took this leg at low level and made good time, again with pretty rural scenery and little white puffy clouds along our route. Also many large flocks of snow geese, which are lovely but very large so quite alarming when they get too close. Did a quick turnaround at Watertown and headed off for Ashland Wisconsin.

Since we were now headed due East, we picked up some very nice tailwinds. The plane is doing very well now we are not in the mountains any longer, engine temps holding well and putting out a lot of speed now that the air is denser. Ashland was a lovely stop with a log cabin FBO where they were grilling bratwurst which were delicious. All this time Barbara and Ethel, Mary and Elaine were tracking along with us. We were all feeling pretty good, and decided to fly the fourth leg of the day (seventh overall) to Sault Sainte Marie Michigan on the Canadian border. Little did we know that the back end of that cold front was going to come back and bite us!!

We all set off due East again, with a beautiful but very bumpy late afternoon flight over the forests and lakes of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, along the side of Lake Superior. The cold front was sitting in a line just East of our destination, but the forecast for our route was fine. However on the way we noticed little areas of rain popping up on the radar, that seemed to be strengthening. The first teams to arrive at Sault Sainte Marie ahead of us reported heavy rain right over the airport. Three planes decided to land further back on the route and wait for the radar to clear up. The rest of us spent quite a few minutes circling in the VFR gap between the storm and clear of Canadian airspace, till the visibility cleared enough to fly the timing line and land in VFR conditions. But our times for this leg (and probably for the race overall) are totally blown!! To finish this eventful day, the six Eastern PA team members are having dinner in Sault Sainte Marie next to the St Mary River and within view of the bridge to Canada! We are going to console ourselves with shrimp and beer for our probably abysmal performance in leg 7, but will raise a toast to mother nature for always having the last word, and will plan for a fun and leisurely last two legs tomorrow! They are having a spectacular firework display on the Canadian side, which seems very apt.