I should have posted this several days ago, but I have been fighting a raging head cold or something like that.
We went from ADS to Sugar Land (KSGR) for Thanksgiving with Celia's sister and family (good folks, I definitely married up), then, bright & early Friday morning, launched out of SGR for Cibolo Creek Ranch, a stuningly-nice place west of the Big Bend National Park in far west Texas (TS15).
Weather when we left SGR was marginal VFR, but everywhere to the north and west of us was solid IMC, so it was a no-brainer to file IFR; I filed direct to a nearby VOr then airways for as direct as I could hope, but they gave me RV to a DP which took me over to Centex VOR and onward on airways.
As it turned out, all that was OK, and you should have heard all the folks being handled by Houston Center as they tried to get traffic into College Station for the Texas / Texas A&M game. It was a madhouse, as Easterwoods was 500 and 2. At one point, I heard a controller tell a pilot who was asking for a favor that he had 17 aircraft en route to CLL in holds; I heard him give a King Air a holding instruction, and "...the time is now 17:02 zulu, expect further clearance at 17:30 zulu."
These controllers were workin' it and doing what I thought was a great job. Then one yay-hoo comments (in response to a vector for sequence), "Our tax dollars at work for our great air traffic control system." "What a jerk," thought I, and several pilots on frequency specifically complimented the controllers on their work.
A few minutes later, ZHU tells this guy he has a phone number for him to copy and call from the ground "...to discuss our great air traffic control system."
But I, fortunately, was able to fly out of all that in clear air above the clouds, and those in turn dissipated somewhere around the Junction VOR (JCT), and had a great flight on into the starkly beautiful arid west Texas countryside.
We landed at the Cibolo Creek Ranch strip, which has been very nicely repaved and sealed (before, it was crushed rock on asphalt, and apparemtly very rough on jets and their paint). If you look at Airnav, the runway info is all wrong; it is one runway, 9/27, 5,300' paved. Met at the plane as scheduled, we were driven into the ranch proper (about 10 minutes drive), and into the beautiful world of this marvelous place.
I don't know how I can tell you how great this place is. Very quiet, food you just would not believe, no phones or TVs in the rooms. Great to meet new people as you eat at the long tables in the dining room. We took Tommy to the shooting range to try out his great-grandfather's old .22 rifle, and that was fun (Tommy's named after old Tom Cox, God keep him, and although Tommy never got to meet his great-grandfather, he has his gun).
Saturday night, the owner of the place, John Poindexter, arranged for a "star party," with a professional astronomer and a large, computer-controlled reflector telescope. The air is so clear out there, and light pollution so distant, that the stars are almost tangible.
For anyone who is looking for a marvelously luxurious and ultimately relaxing place, I cannot recommend Cibolo Creek Ranch highly enough. Website is www.cibolocreekranch.com and if you call, speak with George Vanetten (who runs the place); he's a pilot, speaks our language well, and will ensure that you are well cared-for.
For me, of course, there's the flying, and the one thing I needed that TS15 did not have was fuel, so on Saturday, I flew up to Marfa (KMRF) to gas up and visit with our own Dave Taylor (or, as I learned from the locals, "Dr. Dave"). He met me at the field, and showed me his hangar (the Viking's quite happy in there), and his world-class guy's place workshop (pic attached). Dave also took me to see the jet he gets to fly, from "the ranch strip" (if you can call a 6,500' paved runway a "strip"). Pics of that, too. He let me sit in the pilot's seat and dream. I thought I had a picture of Dave in the cockpit as well, but apparently, it got lost....
I know I'll be back that way, and next time, I have to buy a steak or something for Dave. Proof, yet again, that airplane people are good people.
The trip back, on Sunday, was something else entirely, but I've already written about that in the "ride 'em Cowboy" thread; suffice to say that the huge tailwind was offset by the substantial turbulence, and I flew back to ADS at (usually) 120kt IAS, and 200+kt GS.
We went from ADS to Sugar Land (KSGR) for Thanksgiving with Celia's sister and family (good folks, I definitely married up), then, bright & early Friday morning, launched out of SGR for Cibolo Creek Ranch, a stuningly-nice place west of the Big Bend National Park in far west Texas (TS15).
Weather when we left SGR was marginal VFR, but everywhere to the north and west of us was solid IMC, so it was a no-brainer to file IFR; I filed direct to a nearby VOr then airways for as direct as I could hope, but they gave me RV to a DP which took me over to Centex VOR and onward on airways.
As it turned out, all that was OK, and you should have heard all the folks being handled by Houston Center as they tried to get traffic into College Station for the Texas / Texas A&M game. It was a madhouse, as Easterwoods was 500 and 2. At one point, I heard a controller tell a pilot who was asking for a favor that he had 17 aircraft en route to CLL in holds; I heard him give a King Air a holding instruction, and "...the time is now 17:02 zulu, expect further clearance at 17:30 zulu."
These controllers were workin' it and doing what I thought was a great job. Then one yay-hoo comments (in response to a vector for sequence), "Our tax dollars at work for our great air traffic control system." "What a jerk," thought I, and several pilots on frequency specifically complimented the controllers on their work.
A few minutes later, ZHU tells this guy he has a phone number for him to copy and call from the ground "...to discuss our great air traffic control system."
But I, fortunately, was able to fly out of all that in clear air above the clouds, and those in turn dissipated somewhere around the Junction VOR (JCT), and had a great flight on into the starkly beautiful arid west Texas countryside.
We landed at the Cibolo Creek Ranch strip, which has been very nicely repaved and sealed (before, it was crushed rock on asphalt, and apparemtly very rough on jets and their paint). If you look at Airnav, the runway info is all wrong; it is one runway, 9/27, 5,300' paved. Met at the plane as scheduled, we were driven into the ranch proper (about 10 minutes drive), and into the beautiful world of this marvelous place.
I don't know how I can tell you how great this place is. Very quiet, food you just would not believe, no phones or TVs in the rooms. Great to meet new people as you eat at the long tables in the dining room. We took Tommy to the shooting range to try out his great-grandfather's old .22 rifle, and that was fun (Tommy's named after old Tom Cox, God keep him, and although Tommy never got to meet his great-grandfather, he has his gun).
Saturday night, the owner of the place, John Poindexter, arranged for a "star party," with a professional astronomer and a large, computer-controlled reflector telescope. The air is so clear out there, and light pollution so distant, that the stars are almost tangible.
For anyone who is looking for a marvelously luxurious and ultimately relaxing place, I cannot recommend Cibolo Creek Ranch highly enough. Website is www.cibolocreekranch.com and if you call, speak with George Vanetten (who runs the place); he's a pilot, speaks our language well, and will ensure that you are well cared-for.
For me, of course, there's the flying, and the one thing I needed that TS15 did not have was fuel, so on Saturday, I flew up to Marfa (KMRF) to gas up and visit with our own Dave Taylor (or, as I learned from the locals, "Dr. Dave"). He met me at the field, and showed me his hangar (the Viking's quite happy in there), and his world-class guy's place workshop (pic attached). Dave also took me to see the jet he gets to fly, from "the ranch strip" (if you can call a 6,500' paved runway a "strip"). Pics of that, too. He let me sit in the pilot's seat and dream. I thought I had a picture of Dave in the cockpit as well, but apparently, it got lost....
I know I'll be back that way, and next time, I have to buy a steak or something for Dave. Proof, yet again, that airplane people are good people.
The trip back, on Sunday, was something else entirely, but I've already written about that in the "ride 'em Cowboy" thread; suffice to say that the huge tailwind was offset by the substantial turbulence, and I flew back to ADS at (usually) 120kt IAS, and 200+kt GS.
