We woke to gray, cloudy skies this morning in Niagara Falls. I knew there was a lot of heavy rain & thunderstorms in the area, but last night it looked like it was going to stay south of our route. However, overnight it moved north a bit and now was right in our way. The entire state of Michigan was lit up on the radar map with green, yellow, & red. I had some bad news to deliver at breakfast…
When we got together I explained the situation and we discussed options. One thing that was adding complexity is that we were in Canada and we needed to clear customs upon return to the US. Each facility has different hours & notification requirements and, in the case of Grand Rapids, is by appointment only on weekends. In order to remove this problem from the equation, we decided to make the short flight (15 minutes) to Buffalo, NY to clear customs and get our feet back in the USA. Then, on any subsequent flight, we would have a lot more flexibility if we need to divert and land somewhere else.
The short flight was uneventful. We cleared customs and then found ourselves standing in the FBO terminal. Now what? Michele worked with the lady at the desk to call a few hotels. We thought we might stay here overnight and go tomorrow when the weather clears, but the hotels were all full due to a sporting event in town. We discussed the option of flying home to Tampa (5 ½ hours) since the weather looked great along that entire route. The kids were really in favor of that option, but we really wanted to get Sandy to Michigan if at all possible. Maybe we could fly south of the storms to Indiana to wait it out? But, that would add a couple hours to our flight time.
It was about 11:30am when Roland & I went into the flight planning room to have another look at the radar. Incredibly, the last few images in the radar loop showed northern Michigan beginning to clear up. We froze the image on the last return and saw that there was a pretty good path around the weather to the North. We decided to give it a try. I quickly filed a flight plan taking us back over Niagara, Toronto, northern Michigan and then down to Grand Rapids. Michele took the crew car to Wendy’s to get us some lunch while I had the FBO top the airplane off with fuel.
Finally, shortly after noon, we took off and headed north. The first 30 minutes were kind of bumpy as we were climbing to our cruise altitude of 10,000 feet. We were in & out of clouds, but we got a great view of the falls as we flew over. Canadian air traffic control was terrific. At first, they were puzzled with my requesting routing until I explained that I was trying to avoid the weather. Then they said to deviate as necessary and direct to Grand Rapids when able, which basically meant I was free to fly wherever I wanted to avoid the storms.
During the next hour, I picked my way through the cells using a combination of the on-board radar, NEXRAD datalink, and my eyeballs. We were in & out of light rain and had some occasional light turbulence, but it wasn’t bad at all. Finally, we flew through one last gap and burst out into bright sunshine on top of a lower layer of clouds. It was a beautiful sight!
The rest of the flight was very pleasant, but we had a 50+ mph headwind, so it seemed to take forever. We finally touched down in Grand Rapids around 3:30pm. Sandy eagerly called her family to let them know we made it to town. We got two rental vans, loaded our stuff, drove to the hotel, checked in, and just had time to shower, change, and lay on the bed for about 15 minutes. Then, it was almost 6pm, time to go visit.
We made the short drive to Emory & Marlee’s house where the whole Stouffer gang was waiting for us. Andrea grabbed Megan, Darcy took the boys to see the horses, Michele & Sandy started visiting and Emory handed me a cold beer. Perfect! Emory grilled brats & hot dogs for dinner and later on we sang & had birthday cake for Brandon. The boys enjoyed riding horses, throwing the ball, playing on Tim’s wi (video game).
It was a long, tiring day. I felt physically & mentally drained as I sat on the sofa and took a breather around 9:30pm. Brandon sat next to me and said, “Dad –look how happy Grandma is right now” and it was all worthwhile. We have no firm plans for tomorrow yet, but we might go on a boat ride with cousin Ritchie.
When we got together I explained the situation and we discussed options. One thing that was adding complexity is that we were in Canada and we needed to clear customs upon return to the US. Each facility has different hours & notification requirements and, in the case of Grand Rapids, is by appointment only on weekends. In order to remove this problem from the equation, we decided to make the short flight (15 minutes) to Buffalo, NY to clear customs and get our feet back in the USA. Then, on any subsequent flight, we would have a lot more flexibility if we need to divert and land somewhere else.
The short flight was uneventful. We cleared customs and then found ourselves standing in the FBO terminal. Now what? Michele worked with the lady at the desk to call a few hotels. We thought we might stay here overnight and go tomorrow when the weather clears, but the hotels were all full due to a sporting event in town. We discussed the option of flying home to Tampa (5 ½ hours) since the weather looked great along that entire route. The kids were really in favor of that option, but we really wanted to get Sandy to Michigan if at all possible. Maybe we could fly south of the storms to Indiana to wait it out? But, that would add a couple hours to our flight time.
It was about 11:30am when Roland & I went into the flight planning room to have another look at the radar. Incredibly, the last few images in the radar loop showed northern Michigan beginning to clear up. We froze the image on the last return and saw that there was a pretty good path around the weather to the North. We decided to give it a try. I quickly filed a flight plan taking us back over Niagara, Toronto, northern Michigan and then down to Grand Rapids. Michele took the crew car to Wendy’s to get us some lunch while I had the FBO top the airplane off with fuel.
Finally, shortly after noon, we took off and headed north. The first 30 minutes were kind of bumpy as we were climbing to our cruise altitude of 10,000 feet. We were in & out of clouds, but we got a great view of the falls as we flew over. Canadian air traffic control was terrific. At first, they were puzzled with my requesting routing until I explained that I was trying to avoid the weather. Then they said to deviate as necessary and direct to Grand Rapids when able, which basically meant I was free to fly wherever I wanted to avoid the storms.
During the next hour, I picked my way through the cells using a combination of the on-board radar, NEXRAD datalink, and my eyeballs. We were in & out of light rain and had some occasional light turbulence, but it wasn’t bad at all. Finally, we flew through one last gap and burst out into bright sunshine on top of a lower layer of clouds. It was a beautiful sight!
The rest of the flight was very pleasant, but we had a 50+ mph headwind, so it seemed to take forever. We finally touched down in Grand Rapids around 3:30pm. Sandy eagerly called her family to let them know we made it to town. We got two rental vans, loaded our stuff, drove to the hotel, checked in, and just had time to shower, change, and lay on the bed for about 15 minutes. Then, it was almost 6pm, time to go visit.
We made the short drive to Emory & Marlee’s house where the whole Stouffer gang was waiting for us. Andrea grabbed Megan, Darcy took the boys to see the horses, Michele & Sandy started visiting and Emory handed me a cold beer. Perfect! Emory grilled brats & hot dogs for dinner and later on we sang & had birthday cake for Brandon. The boys enjoyed riding horses, throwing the ball, playing on Tim’s wi (video game).
It was a long, tiring day. I felt physically & mentally drained as I sat on the sofa and took a breather around 9:30pm. Brandon sat next to me and said, “Dad –look how happy Grandma is right now” and it was all worthwhile. We have no firm plans for tomorrow yet, but we might go on a boat ride with cousin Ritchie.
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