Friday, December 19th:   So much for relaxation. We have spent the last 2 days cleaning the cabin as the cleaning crew whom we had to fire) had done nothing and we have guestsrenting the place for Christmas week. We would like to stay another day but the weather for Saturday is flrecast to be snow in the mountains and we need to be out ahead of the snow. The windw today are howling, but howling. Fortunately, they are howling in the proper direction and we should have a tail wind to go to Charlotte, NC to visit my brother, Chris, and family. 

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We study our route carefully as there is a cold layer that we must avoid as the clouds are rolling in, too. The freezing layer is 12,000' so we are OK flying at 9,000' but with the winds aloft at 65 kts, we are not interested in crossing over the highest point east of the Mississippi, Mt. Mitchell, which is right in our "direct to" path. We opt for a southerly route taking us over some lower terrain at 4,000', still giving us a substantial margin over the rocks, even though the flight planner says it will add an additional 20 minutes to our 1 hour 45 minute flight. We depart again IFR to get through the scattered soup and head off to the southeast. We like the speed, although we have a 20 degree crosswind correction. As we near Chattanooga, we are cruising along at a brisk 195 kts ... and we have not yet hit the most favorable winds. We round the turn to catch the good stuff and head back to the northeast toward Charlotte. The GPS shows our ground speed climbing... 200 kts .... 205 kts .... 210 kts .... 215 kts! In level flight - that is a record for Wild Mama. This is cool as we are not even in full race speed - this is normal cruise. We will have to start descending soon and must throttle back. Even at her reduced power setting we hit 220 kts on the downhill and rocket on into Concord Regional Airport like greased lightening with a total flight time of 1:39 - a full 26 minutes ahead of schedule; but the surface winds are no picnic either. We are fighting a 25 kt surface wind that is a bit gusty at times but come in with a halfway decent landing nonetheless. Off to see family and friends.

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Sunday, December 21st:   Other than getting to spend more time with the family - which is always the best - another benefit of getting her early is that we can hop over to the North Carolina Aviation Museum at Douglas Airport in Charlotte. We like to catch the small local museums and this one looked pretty interesting. For the plaian aircraft displays there wasa F-4 Phantom; F-14 Tomcat; UH1H Huey; several older Sikorskies; and other miscellaneous displays. Then, the best part, there was a flyable DC-3 that we could tour. It was an old Piedmont Airlines aircraft and was restored to its former Piedmont Airlines livery. There was a cockpit from a KC97 Strato-tanker. Now THAT was cool. I assumed the pilots position and Vern jumped into the flight engineer seat - looks to me like he had the greater workload by far!

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Upon departure from the museum, we got to see Santa and his sleigh being pulled by an old jet fighter at the National Guard base. With the wind whipping around, Santa was having quite a time holding on for dear life. Continuing with the Christmas theme, we finished the evening with some Christma light displays.

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Monday, December 22nd:  The weather this morning is bitter cold in Charlotte but crystal clear, as it is in Baltimore, MD. I had wanted to fly us and surprise my 91 year old Mother for the holoidays with a short "hello" but it is so difficult to plan with northeast weather in the winter that I always tell her not to expect me as the weather is too bad. If I can get in then bonus; otherwise there is not an unrealized exectation. Chris accompanied Vern and I up to Maryland so Chris could see his eldest son, Riggs, who will not make the family gathering this year. We also got a call from Eric, Chris, older brother (my step-brother) wondering if we could stop in Dover to see him as well since I had not seen Eric for 30 years! We managed another windy day - cross winds the whole way but making the Friday winds look tame. Westminster, MD wa forecast at 20-25 kts gusting to 45 kts out of the west. This shold be intesting. We must pick our runways carefully to be sure we do not exceed the demonstrated cross-windabilities of Wild Mama.

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Dover was a cake-walk with the winds zooming straight down the runway. Of course, we made our approach at 40 kts ground speed with a realtively high power setting. We made a brief visit with Eric and wife, Elaine, and were off to do battle with the winds once again. The next sopt was Martin State to drop Chris and on to Westminster to see Mother. The winds had settled enough and were turning slightly to the northwest so the runway orientation of NW was not nearly as bad as it might have been. We wobbled and bobbled our way in to very gusty landings, made our visit with Mother then headed for Frederick to meet with the chair for the 2010 ARC terminus.

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I had wanted to meet with Amandafor quite some time but all the previous attempts to get there had been thwarted by bad timeing or bad weather. This time - 25 kt winds and 11 degree temperatures, we managed to meet in front of the Landmark FBO fireplace. We had a great chat about the race and about the things that Frederick needs to do to prepare for our arrival in 2010. They have lots of time and lots of energy as this is a young chapter. ARC had never before been to Maryland as a stop nor a terminus so this will be a historic visit.

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We finished our business, said our good-byes, then Verna dn I were off again into the bitter cold winds. We were to head back to Martin State for the night to stay with Chris so we could depart in the morning before the forecast freezing rains were to arrive. The trip tat took us 40 minutes this afternoon, took us 16 minutes this evening.

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Tuesday, December 23rd: With family visitation behind us, we were off to NC again to complete our ouwn Christmas preparations. The winds had shifted and all that great tailwind n which we had languished was all gone and we were left with 35 kt headwinds aloft at 4,500'. We remained around 1,000' AGL until we got throught the Washington DC Class B airspace then tried to move up but the winds cut our chariot seed to a paultry 114 kts over the ground, so back downit was. It was much better to endure the bumps at 135 kts than it was was have a smooth ride at 114 kts. We made an uneventful trip home ahead of the freezing rain that blanketed the area only hours behind us.