PartII - Aug 8 Thursday Travel Utah to Nebraska

Today's goal is to fly to Omaha, Nebraska.  It will require a stop to refuel, and our plan is Cheyenne, Wyoming for a pit stop - we wouldn't make it on a single tank of gas with any headwind.  Once again, we have contingency plans, as there are predicted thunderstorms along our route.  

But in Ogden, it was a glorious morning.  

Our plane looked so pretty and eager to fly as we prepared to leave Ogden, Utah.  

It was a lovely takeoff toward the south, giving us a beautiful 270 degree turn - with a sweeping view of Antelope Island as we said good bye.

From the sky, this looked very much like a ski resort.    Not sure if it is Powder Mountain or Snow Basin.  We were East of Ogden , traveling at 15,000 ft.  Of course, that's above sea level, and Ogden was already 4,500 ft above sea level.

We traveled over the Cascade Range of mountains, lots of mountains in Utah. We are almost in Wyoming.   And when we are in Wyoming, guess what  - Mountains! 

8:35am MT. Of curse we have a 13 knot head wind  We dream of tail winds, but it doesn't happen often.  Some nice checkerboard layout of farms,  near Fort Bridge.

T

 Elk Mountain (11,156 ft).  just after Saratoga.   

And Medicine Bow peak (12193 ft)

We are probably flying over the Snow Pass within the Medicine Bow Range.  And I couldn't get a good picture of Laramie because we went directly over it!

Cheyenne airport, at 6,200 ft above sea level.  This was the highest airport we stopped at, and it is one of the highest in the country.  It is higher than Denver, and it is similar to landing on Mt. Washington  - which is 6,200 ft high!  

There was a C130 practicing landings.  Did a touch n go before us and after us.

Within 50 minutes we were leaving Cheyenne, heading east,  80 degrees, toward Omaha, NE

Not long after, we are in Nebraska.  Lots of fields.  Ended up bring mostly cloud cover over the whole state.

We ended up climbing to 15,000 ft to escape clouds, but ended up needing to descend to 11,000 ft.   Which worked out pretty well.   Some clouds, but not too bad.  

Omaha, Nebraska -- we have arrived!

Very busy airport.   There were two planes lined up and waiting for us to land.  And the runway is right next to the Missouri River.  Note the barge we flew over as we landed.

Once we were in Omaha. We settled in and were able to walk to their Old Market area -- which is a section of town with a lot of shops, restaurants, and bars.  We decided  to do something a little different and went to an Indian restaurant  (Indian One).  It was quite good.  We are starting to really like curried mussels!