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Lewis and Clark Route by Parachute

Monday, July 12, 2004

We left for the airport at 5:30 this morning; we wanted to see for certain the storm clouds were gone.  The moon was bright and clear, better than the last few days.  The sandwich was rather soggy; otherwise, they are beginning to taste OK for breakfast by now.  On the horizon in the direction of flight there was still a cloud mass, but I was certain the morning sun would make it dissipate.

The wind was from the southwest for a change.  After retracing the few miles north of town to where we landed the night before, I was able to get a decent amount of ground speed most of the first leg to Cameron, Missouri.  The 80 mile stretch covered the northeast corner of Kansas.  During the early part of the flight, fog formed in some of the valleys here and there but was soon gone after the sun had been up for a while.

Missouri River

The cloud mass in front of me kept moving ahead the same direction I was going.  Larry later said he could see on the ground where it had been raining earlier in the morning.  At Cameron, they also said it had been raining.  It seems we were just following up the rainstorm.  I could see in bare fields below that water was still standing on the surface from a heavy shower.

Missouri farmland following rain storm
It was really good to look down and see the landscape flowing past instead of just barely moving.  The speed felt good but it also caused a little apprehension wondering what it was like on the surface.

When we refueled at Carrollton 60 miles away, the local pilots said a couple of my planned stops had more plane activity than I felt comfortable with in a PPC so considering the tailwinds I decided to take a 94 mile hop to Hermonn, Missouri.  We were fortunate to keep the tail winds and traveled 40 to 68 mph all the way.  I covered it so quickly there was plenty of fuel left and I decided to go on to Washington, Missouri, a town that I had picked to end the Lewis and Clark flight.  I arrived ahead of Larry by almost an hour.  We made at least 300 miles for the day and I was on the ground by 3:30 PM.  There were two people at the airport but no one was there to see the last landing.

Bob

Farmland at Washington, Missouri

Bob & Larry at Washington, Missouri Airport

Bank of the Missouri River where Lewis & Clark ended their journey

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis Arch, Missouri

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

We got up late (6:30) this morning.  We drove into St Louis and to the ARCH by the river.  This is the spot on the shore where Lewis and Clark ended their homebound journey.  We felt that it was appropriate to end ours there as well.

Larry Chase & Bob at the Arch

At noon we met Bob Reineke and his wife, Donna, under the Arch.  They drove from Indiana to see me.  The last time we were together was 49 years ago when I was discharged from the US Air Force.  We had a nice visit and lunch before heading back to Washington airport to load up the PPC and start west toward home.

Donna & Bob Reineke with Bob at the Arch

I want to thank Leonard Greenwalt who went the first lap with me to Lincoln, MT.  I also need to thank Larry Chase from Okanogan who went the rest of the way and was so helpful in maintenance of the chute and engine.  He knows much more about them than I do.

I can't remember all of the names of the people who were so good to us along the way like Pat, Butch, Leon, George, Dallas and more.  It was a pleasure meeting and interacting with all of them.

Each state we passed over has a beauty of its own.  I don't have the words to describe the beautiful forests of Oregon, the rolling wheat fields of Washington or the seemingly endless forested mountains of Idaho and Western Montana.  All of eastern Montana and North Dakota was green even though it was July.  The herds of antelope running over the gentle hills out of Glendive were so graceful.

It was quite apparent the rivers are the life blood of the land although South Dakota and Nebraska seemed to have green crops everywhere, each area with its own style of farming and working the soil whether with strip cropping, terraces, flood irrigating with circles or dryland.  I was impressed with the amount of forests left in Missouri and the flat farm lands along the Missouri river in so many places.

All in all, Lewis and Clark opened up a wonderful country for mankind and from what I could see, man is taking pretty darn good care of it across the country that I flew over.

Summary:

The best estimate of air miles traveled on this trip is 2550 from Astoria to Washington on the outskirts of St Louis, Missouri including 70 miles of backtracking at Kooskie.

I was actually in the air for 73 hours covering an average of 34 miles per hour average.  The shortest miles in a day was about 70 miles.  The longest in one day was 330.

There were only 12 days of flying, three days waiting out weather and 10 days waiting for repair and parts.  The expensive eye glasses that we ran over in Hermiston, then got repaired, were permently lost at Falls City, Nebraska on the last night of the flight and Larry lost his cell phone; otherwise, we are no worse for the wear both pleased we finished what we started.

Thanks for following along.  Leonard and Larry's stories are on the next page.

Bob

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