We made it to Green Bay yesterday. The weather story when I checked it first thing in the morning was lots of cloud, with marginal VFR conditions at the airports of interest. I filed an IFR flight plan and then we drove to the airport. Packing was a challenge. Tent, sleeping bags, air mattress for Terry, mattress pad for Kevin, folding chairs, tie downs, clothes, gifts for one of Terry's sisters, etc. We got it all in except the small beer cooler with the beer for the coffin guy. We pulled out two beer, and put then into a freezer bag with a cold pack and got them in.


 

I had planned to clear customs at Chippewa County, south of Sault Ste Marie, but when I called Customs they made it pretty clear they would be much, much happier if we went to Sanderson Field, which is much closer to their facility. Chippewa is an official Airport of Entry, so they couldn't refuse to come out there, but you sure don't want to have a cranky Customs officer, so we changed plans to go to Sanderson. The reason we wanted to go to Chippewa is that they apparently have food on field.

We got airborne pretty much on schedule, but the headwinds were stronger than forecast (no real surprise). I checked the XM Weather regularly, and the actual conditions at our destination and alternate airports were much worse than forecast. Sanderson Field was well below approach minima, and Canadian Sault, our alternate was below alternate minima, but well above approach minima. We had lots of fuel, and we could fly several approaches, then comfortably make to it other airports that had OK weather, but no Customs. As it turned out, the weather at our destination and alternate improved slightly before we arrived, and we picked up the runway about 3 miles back. The two Customs guys were extremely friendly and helpful, as were the airport staff.

Terry really, really wanted a hamburger, so the airport folks gave us the keys to their courtesy car, and directions to the West Pier Drive In. The car was on its last legs, and I barely got it started. It would crank and crank, then fire on one cylinder once, then maybe fire another cylinder. I eventually found the needed cadence of pumping the gas, and the rpm and rate of single cylinder firings gradually increased. It finally cleared its throat and started, but it wouldn't idle until it got warmed up. The muffler was shot, so it made a tremendous racket.

The West Pier Drive In was a real dive, with very cheap prices, but excellent burgers and fries. The serving gals would come out to the car to take your order, and bring the food out on a tray that hung on the window - it had probably been 30 years since I last did that.


 

When we arrived in Sault Ste Marie, the Green Bay weather was 100 ft ceiling and 1/2 mile visibility, which was much too low to even consider launching. But, while we had lunch we called one of Terry's brother in laws, and he said the fog was starting to lift, and we had a good alternate airport, so we launched. We were on top of cloud most of the way to Green Bay, and the cloud had lifted to a 2500 ft ceiling by the time we arrived.


 

Terry was excited to see Lambeau Field go by as we flew our approach into Green Bay.


 

We parked at the Executive Air FBO, getting the full red carpet treatment, and we were met by several of Terry's sisters. The aircraft will remain there until we do the short trip to Oshkosh.

Oshkosh has had a very large amount of rain the last few weeks, and the grounds are quite wet. They were just starting to dry out, when they had two more days of rain. They got more rain this morning, but once this system passes the forecast is for 3 and a half days of sunny skies. The EAA has modified the normal parking procedures, as much of the normally used grass is unusable yet, according to the official parking status info. The guy who manages the Vans aircraft parking area reports that he managed to get a few RVs parked on the higher, drier parts, but that much of the area is still too wet to use. He requested that people delay their arrival a day to give things time to dry out. So, we are definitely not going to fly to Oshkosh today. Maybe we'll fly down tomorrow, or maybe on Monday. I'll be keeping a close eye on the OSH field PIREPS page.