Road Trip by Air

After an exciting trip to NYC for Thanksgiving, you'd think I'd stay home for awhile, but nope. Although it was a fun vacation touristy trip to NY for me, not so for Bill, who had to fly nearly every day while there. Once he got back to Houston, he was on vacation for a week, and he wanted to ... wait for it... go FLYING again, but in his own plane. So we planned a quick overnight trip to Fredericksburg via Burnet, to check out my property.

Like all road trips, you have to gas up first.  Although there are self-serve gas pumps for airplanes, it is much easier to have the gas truck come to the hangar to fill 'er up.

 The weather was great and we had a smooth trip over to Burnet, with me practicing my flying skills. Bill was the navigator, which is even more important! You can't just follow Hwy 290 to Austin. Well, you could, but that defeats the purpose of being able to travel as the crow flies!

 At the Burnet we borrowed the airport courtesy car.

 First stop was at Eagle's Nest for a look at the retirement property. It is so peaceful and quiet up there.

 Diane's house is under construction, they will be moving in March.

 My lot has a healthy growth of cactus!

 This is the view from my property, it is much nicer in person than in the picture.

 We stopped for lunch at a new restaurant in Burnet. Good food, and something new.

 After departing Burnet, we flew over Eagle's Nest to take some pictures from the air.

 Fredericksburg was only about 30 minutes by air and we parked right out in front of the Hangar Hotel.

 The Hangar Hotel is designed to look like a WWII facility, complete with old fashioned looking phones (still push buttons though), olive drab blankets on the bed, and lots of WWII style posters decorating the lobby.

 The leather chairs were in the rooms too, and very comfortable. Notice the old suitcases on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. One had a luggage tag for Asheville, NC.

 We wanted to go into town for dinner, and the limo was just sitting right outside the hotel, so...  The driver was a nice young guy who also flies helicopter tours around the area. He uses the limo to take folks on wine tours of the region. He took us into town, then came back and picked us up after dinner and only asked for beer money. Bill gave him ample beer money, and we had a nice ride each way into Fredericksburg.

 Here is a picture of one of the decorated courtyards on the main drag in Fredericksburg. Very Christmas-y, and most of the business of Fredericksburg in town is tourism. So the folks there make it a very scenic place to wander around in.

 The next morning we had to wait a bit for the skies to clear before taking off.  Even so, we had to divert back north to find clear skies. San Antonio, Austin and parts south had fog and mist, but north across from Burnet to Georgetown to Hooks was clear.

It was a fun trip, I got to fly a lot, tried the landings but let Bill take over at the critical points. 

Bill has a small portable mp3 speaker, that sort of looks like the ones below, it can pop up to increase bass range.  We took it to NYC and to Fredericksburg and played music from his nano in the evenings. Much more relaxing and ambiance than watching TV.  Songs we picked out on played with good sound. A definite must have travel item for all future trips.