Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Day 3

If I had to define Day 3 with any kind of summary it would be just insane weather planning. We dodged storms from the moment we awoke and broke camp (was it raining you ask? Of course it was!) till we finally touched down, exhausted, in Texas. Another way would simply be never ending deviations. We changed our routing all day long to respond to updating storm conditions, starting with the night before when we realized we could actually get out in the morning if we rose early enough. So we did just that, waking at 5 am in the darkness and rain to hastily pack up and be in the air just before sunrise at 5:50, in order to break free of the incoming storm front by dipping beneath it to the south.
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We took off from Reelfoot into a grey glowing sky, with surprisingly fine visibility and rising cloud ceilings and booked it south, the storm incoming to our right. As soon as we had it cleared, we turned due west direct to KSUZ for fuel before hitting Hot Springs or KHOT, where we had originally planned to wait out the weather. We were about to call it a day when we took another look at the charts and realized that if we wanted to press on, we could make into KLNC Lancaster, a little airport to the south of Dallas, with some careful storm circumnavigation. It would also save us from being stuck on the ground for weather for a substantial amount of time, so we decided it was the right call, hastily fueled, and headed out for the great state of Texas.