A little light on pics today. 🙁
As expected, the departure out of Caldwell was kinda tricky this morning.
The bottom of the cloud layer at 8:30am was around 1800' and topped out at maybe 3000'-ish. It wasn't a solid layer, so there were spots where I could've climbed above it - except - the floor of Newark airport's airspace was at 3000' above me. So, in order to get above the cloud layer I would have to bust into Newark's airspace. To add an extra wrinkle to this, there were Temporary Flight Restrictions in the area that started at 10:45am due to the president's arrival at Bedminster. That meant I had to be clear of those before they became active. I had a few options, but ended up just staying below and away from the clouds until I was out from under the Newark airspace and then climbed through an opening to get on top. Worked out just fine.
At one point I was over the Quabbin Reservoir and decided it was too good to pass up, so I went in for a closer look. It's a beautiful reservoir with lots of small islands and tons of trees all along the shoreline. There were a few fishing boats but not much other traffic. I found out later that it's a main reservoir for the area, so it's a good thing I didn't land. I flew around the reservoir for a few minutes before getting back on track to my destination of Stow, MA. I'll try to get a short video together of this.
The high point of the day was meeting up with my wife, who flew in from LA today. We haven't seen each other in three weeks, since I started this trip. We'll be spending the next couple of days here visiting with family and friends. I have a bunch of people lined up for rides tomorrow!
😀👍🏼