I am still alive, although I have been out of town recently, and upon returning, found loads of work awaiting me. Hence the delayed entry.

Here’s what happened: My wife and I went to Fariboult (apparently pronounced "Fair-i-bo") Minnesota and picked up our airplane. A 1974 Piper Arrow II. (See entry on 18 April for Picture). Hey Adam, turns out MN is a really beautiful state! We flew from MN to Hastings, Kansas and then to Raton, New Mexico in the mountains. (Breath-taking, but very bumpy flight). We stayed the night there.

Left about 7:45 local from Raton and about 40-min into the flight the electric trim stopped working. (I'm cussing under my breath because this is a common - and expensive - problem, but I was assured by the inspector that it was a strong motor) This was shortly followed by the color, moving map GPS flickering off, then on, off then on... I immediately dialed in a back-up nav-aid to get to our next destination, then it went dead as well. I looked over at the Amp-meter, and saw it pegged at ZERO! Woo Hoo! Gotta love it. We flew over Las Vegas, NM airport about 20 minutes prior, so we turned around and went back. Our hand-held back-up radio was dead from the day prior (I won't mention how that happened, I might get in trouble when she reads this... ;-p ) Pulled out the hand-held GPS, which really help expedite our return to the airfield. En-route we went through the landing checks and the gear did not come down! No electricity. This is so not my day. So I executed and emergency gear extension. Unfortunately you have no indication they are actually locked in position when you do this. I felt them drop and executed the procedures to ensure they are down, but flew low and looked at my shadow just to be sure. Long story short is I flew the no-com procedures and landed w/o incident. Kudos to the wife for remaining calm, being a good co-pilot and helping me get through this efficiently.

Turns out this little airport has no mechanics. (I know, at this point it’s just funny) Ended up charging the hand-held radio and the aircraft battery. Started the airplane, turned off all electricity and flew gear down with only a short range hand-held radio, 60 miles to Santa Fe over I-25 and then some mountains. (If you are a pilot, you know this is very nerve-racking! I don’t care what you’ve been told, radar is not all that accurate, especially in the mountains) Turns out the mechanic at "Million Air" (Yes, Million Air… Now I'm really going to be broke) found a broken alternator wire. He had me fixed and back on the tarmac in less than 45 minutes and for only $56.00! That's extremely cheap!!! After that debacle, we flew to Payson Arizona (another beautiful but bumpy mountain town). There was another issue here, but I'll spare you.

From there it was straight to Palm Desert, then back home to Fallbrook in the morning with Harrison in tow. No, not literally. (More fun weather issues here, but again, I'll spare you).

So, we're all here and alive. Just thought you'd like to know.

Keep up the good fight on the home front and remember; there is a difference in knowing what you have the right to do and doing the right thing!