Flight to Midland, TX

Sunrise on the Plains, originally uploaded by Cielo Azul Images.

As mentioned, I had a flight to Midland, Texas this past Saturday. In order to get this sunrise picture over West, Texas I had to leave my home base at 4am. I then flew to 07V, aka Cuchara, Colorado to pick up my passengers. When I arrived over 07V to land at 4:22am the runway lights wouldn't come on. Long story short, I was able to identify the runway well enough on my third (and final) attempt in order to land in the dark. If I couldn't have made out the runway environment on my third pass I was going to turn around and go home and go back to bed. The moon was not out on Saturday morning, so the surrounding darkness was impressive. But, once I was on the ground the takeoff in that kind of darkness was easy and we were soon on our way to Midland, enjoying 35 knot tailwinds and landing 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Of course, on our return trip the same day, I paid for our quick trip to Texas with those same strong winds now on my nose. Twelve hours later, with our business in Texas wrapped up, I landed back at my home base of Alamosa and went on a hot date! I love flying.