Day 2 - Lake Mead to Lake Powell

Tony Cacciarelli • June 16, 2020

Boulder City, NV (KBVU) to
Page, AZ (KPGA) - June 16, 2019

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Parked at Boulder City KBVU

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Leaving Lake Mead

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Land and Sky

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Amazing colors and some rain out there

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I can see for miles and miles

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Layered colors

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Original Instagram Post

A little slower pace for my second day.

I had clear skies coming out of Lake Mead but saw a few thunderstorms popping up along my route.

Decided to change the plan to avoid those storms, which ended up being a little shorter than my initial scenic route and put me closer to the north rim of the Grand Canyon as well.

The scenery here is just incredible in every direction. I dodged around a couple more storms and got into Page, AZ at noon.

With the weather forecast not looking great, I decided to hold off on any lake flying until tomorrow. Got checked in at the hotel, explored the city a little bit, and had a great burger @state48tavern.

It’ll be an early start tomorrow, since more storms are predicted for the late morning and afternoon.

😀👍🏼

My original plan was to take a more northern route between Boulder City and Page to follow a string of airport that gave me good options in case of an emergency. But, radar was showing thunderstorms building up all along that area, so I opted for a more direct route. It meant climbing a little higher to clear some mountains, but that was better than trying to thread around building storms. I did hit a small blast of rain as I got closer to Page - just some sprinkles, nothing major.

I'd hoped to do a quick refuel and then fly to Marble Canyon (L41) at the north-east end of the Grand Canyon but the afternoon convection was already in full swing so I decided to postpone that and see if I could get there the next day.

This was the beginning of another sort of trend throughout this trip. I had made big plans for all the things I wanted to do at each location, but I had to weigh that against my personal limits dealing with more challenging terrain and weather. I know some of the decisions I made ended up depriving me of amazing flying experiences, but I didn't ever want to do something I didn't feel comfortable with. Better to be around to fly another day.

The folks at the FBO, Classic Aviation, gave me a ride to my hotel. I got checked in and settled into my room. As part of my planning I'd developed a routine for copying and backing up all my video and photo files from the day and making sure all the devices were plugged in and charging. I had it pretty well automated, so I was able to leave it running and went out to the pool for a soak.

The first few days of the trip were REALLY hot. There was a heat wave across most of the southern U.S. The A5 has amazing visibility with a large front windshield, but the downside is I was baking in the sun for several hours a day. There's no air conditioning in the A5 (it'd add too much weight) and I didn't want to remove the side windows because the wind noise gets to be too much on longer flights.

After taking a swim and cooling down I went back to the room, showered and headed out to find some dinner. It had cooled off a bit, so I walked from my hotel into the downtown area and found State 48 Tavern. It's a cool place with some decent bar food and plenty of beers to choose from.

I walked around Page a little after dinner. I like just exploring around and seeing where it takes me. The town is definitely geared towards summer vacationers with a variety of restaurants and bars.

When I got back to the room I checked the file copies and put together my daily Instagram/Facebook post. This became a pretty normal routine throughout the trip. I didn't have many late nights because I was trying to be up and out early each day to beat the heat.

The GoPro saga continued on this leg. When I checked the footage the cockpit camera was a freeze-frame for almost the entire trip from Boulder City to Page. The side camera seemed to be working OK and the wing camera behaved better this time. So frustrating to not be getting the cockpit view, though.

Being only the second day it hadn't fully set in yet what I was doing. While it was important to stay focused and safe on each flight, I had to keep reminding myself to stop and enjoy the moments. I kept repeating the quote from Ferris Bueller;

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."