A friend and I went on a flying trip of the Southwest. We flew from Salinas to San Diego (MYF) on a Friday afternoon and stayed there for the night. Getting Class B transitions was a breeze as always and Socal App is always great to us little planes.

 

We took off the next day and flew to Needles (EED) which is on the border between CA and AZ. The route took us over Palm Springs and Twenty Nine Palms. Needles airport was awesome and Glen the airport manager was super friendly. It was practically deserted. We then flew to Sedona (SEZ) for lunch. The scenery en route was spectacular.

 

We took off from Sedona and flew towards the Meteor Crater near INW. The desert landscape was stunning. We circled the crater and headed towards Grand Canyon (GCN). The original plan was to stop at GCN and then do the Grand Canyon tour, but we decided we didn't need to stop. The little Tecnam Sierra effortlessly reached 10,500' and the Grand Canyon was even more beautiful from the air than I imagined.

 

We headed straight out towards Henderson (HND) which is the main GA airport in Las Vegas. There was a lot of chatter on the way with all the charter airplanes and helicopters and we had to keep an sharp eye on any traffic. We landed at HND and the service was outstanding. The FBO is run by the county and they had a guy run over and tie down the airplane even before we got out. Someone else pulled up a van, took our luggage and drove us to the terminal where they had already called a cab for us. Wow!

 

We spent the night in Vegas and got to HND at about 9am the next day. A bunch of AOPA members had planned a fly-in at Furnace Creek Airport (L06) in Death Valley which was about 45 mins from HND. We headed out there and had a great brunch at the Furnace Creek Inn. L06 is the lowest elevation airport in the US at -210'. Death Valley was beautiful. On the way back we dodged our way around the various MOAs, flew over Mojave (MHV) with the huge airplanes in storage, and turned west. The initial plan was to make it to Santa Ynez (IZA) but it was getting late so we decided to stop in Santa Paula (SZP).

 

Finding good accomodation in SZP was a challenge and there are no cabs in town. We got someone to drop us off to the only decent motel in town (the guy actually owned one of the competing motels!). We again hitched a ride back to the airport the next morning where we had to wait for some of the clouds to clear before taking off. The airport was wonderful with a great assortment of old airplanes. It is in a beautiful setting between mountains which are pretty close by.

 

We took off a little before noon and headed to Harris Ranch (3O8) for lunch. That is an interesting strip! It is about 30 feet wide and I had a slight crosswind so landing was fun. After a great lunch at Harris Ranch, we did the last 45 minute trip back to SNS to call it a day.

 

All in all, it was the best trip I have ever done. We got about 17 hours of flying done in about 3 days.

 

Here are some videos

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_Ct4-NsWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Mu4v-wRgM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pFUTGzkEEM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-IP6zkge2Q