Wrapping up

Just to bring our blog to a close (in case anyone is still reading it), we left Norfolk around 7pm last night and got home to Doylestown PA around 9pm, Linda flying the final leg through a lovely pink evening sunset with the lights coming out on the ships in the Chesapeake below, and the clouds dissipating around us as the sky darkened. Russell and Linda's Mum and Dad met us in the dark on the ramp when we landed, and we unpacked, tied down and went home. We came home with three new exhaust gaskets, a new spinner, and medals that we didn't have when we left! We also came home with a new understanding of and trust for our plane, which is still less than a year old to us but we now know it much better and respect what it can do. And we're still great friends and a great team! That's all till next year, unless Linda posts a final set of pictures tonight.

Spoke too soon!

Gigantic thunderstorm right over Norfolk airport. Just as we were looking at the dark clouds to the south and debating whether we could get out from under them and head off northeast to our destination, the time interval between the thunder and lightening went down to zero, and torrential rain came down so hard that they shut the ramp, which you can now barely see across anyway. So we are stuck here till it lifts.

Working our way back to PA

Set off early this morning once the new spinner was fitted, and set off over the top of the clouds to our first stop which was Milledgeville GA. We originally intended to fly via Chattanooga but a more easterly route seemed like a better way to stay ahead of the weather. There were some nasty thunderstorms to our East, and since I was flying this leg, Linda called ATC and we got vectors around them. However it was cloudy, hazy and bumpy, and we saw lightening off our wing... By the time we landed there was a heavy rain shower over the airport. Milledgeville was a quiet but pretty stop on a lake, but there was no food. We refueled and set off again.

The next leg was over three hours to Norfolk VA, where we are now sitting in Dennys having borrowed the crew car because we are ravenous. Again, a nice leg but some nasty storms just off our right wing to the East.

Our next and final leg ends in Doylestown, and our long journey of over 3000 nm will be over. It has been awesome - team Cool Beans has been awesome, the flying was outstanding, and we brought home medals! Now thats what I call a vacation.

Yessss! Top ten!

We went down to the banquet this evening full of nerves and excitement. Marilyn Wilson (the president of the ARC) gave out the awards after dinner. Minnetta and Charissa got the Ambassador award for being the only team to fly the entire race route including the cancelled legs (in IFR). The collegiate challenge trophy was given out also. Then, they start on the leg prizes. There are four leg prizes for each leg of the race. The only racers who are eligible for leg prizes are teams who did not make the top ten - we already knew that we were one of the few teams to get a positive score on leg 2 - so therefore, we knew that we'd be highly likely to win a leg prize for that leg - unless we were top ten. Marolyn read out the leg prizes in race number order, and team 21 wasn't called at all! So at this point we knew we'd either won nothing at all, or were top ten.

As it turned out, we got 9th place!!! We were thrilled and delighted. Linda, Barbara and I were called up to receive beautiful and huge medals on red ribbons, and have our photos taken. We're tired and a bit overwhelmed right now, this is a better result than we could ever have hoped for (although from the beginning Barbara did say that we'd come in at number 9!).

So, to summarize the results, 50 teams registered for the race. 2 scratched before the start, and another 4 withdrew during the race due to weather and other issues. One team didn't complete due to maintenance issues which was such a shame. This left 43 teams jn the running. The top two places were taken by collegiate teams (Jacksonville and Illinois respectively), and third place was Joyce Wilson and Rebecca Hempel. Our friend Camelia Smith from Arkansas and her partner Julia Matthews came fourth. Debi Dreyfuss team from the MidAtlantic section were sixth. Mother-daughter team Susan and Marie Carastro came seventh. We were ninth (yay!!!), and our friend Ljn Caywood and her partner Susan Beall also from the MidAtlantic section we're tenth.

Now we have to sleep (we'll probably wear our medals over our pjs!), and tomorrow we plan to fly back to Doylestown via Chattanooga and Blacksburg. Before we leave, we have to get the spinner replaced on the airplane because ours is cracked. Fortunately our home mechanic Kent Heller worked all morning on Friday to locate a replacement spinner somewhere in Wichita that was shipped to the mechanic here on Saturday. Should only take twenty minutes to install.

Here are some thank yous from team Cool Beans:
Our mechanic Kent Heller for his work on the plane, including finding us a replacement spinner at short notice.
Steve Graves and Karen Wunch for the wonderful and unique breast cancer decals as well as our number decals.
Vern Conly for being such an awesome source of advice on the paperwork and maintenance of the plane both before and after the race.
The staff at Bose for going out of their way to get me a replacement headset in time for the race start.
Michael Norris and Josh at El Dorado for all their help with our spinner issue.
Josh and Kelly at Iowa City airport for all their help with our battery and alternator noise filter issues.

I'm sure there are many more, but that's it for now. Good night from #9!!

Scenes from the awards banquet

Some beautiful southern belles joined us for the banquet.
With some interesting under garments!

A shot of the banquet hall

Alison, Linda, Megan, Nicole and Barbara at the banquet

Charissa and Minetta display their ambassador awards for traveling to all the airport thzat were cut out of the race due to weather.....and they still got to Mobile in time to finish the race. Awesome job guys!

The racers from the mid-Atlantic section of the Ninety-Nines. Three teams from the Mid-Atlantic section finished in the top 10!

Linda, Barbara and Alison proudly display their 9th place medals at the awards banquet.

Barbara wearing Linda's and Alison's medals and looking at the weather vane Alison won in the silent auction. Barbara's medal will be shipped to her at home in Florida.

Down To The Wire

Barbara writes

We have busied ourselves this day to make the hours pass till it is time for the banquet and the results to be announced. We have at various times seen ourselves with no prize not even a leg prize and then at moments of sheer wishful thinking we see ourselves in the top three. This evening after dinner the leg prizes will be announced one by one and there are four for each leg and there were six legs. If we win one of these we know we are not in the top ten. If we don,t we will wait for the top ten to be announced and if we are not among those we will not win at all. All the while we will sit with smiles on our faces clapping for each winner. It will be a long evening. In spite of this we have enjoyed ourselves immensely often having great laughs at and with each other. The trip has been a wonderful experience all around and prize or no prize I will go home happy.

The big day is here!

The last official race day started with a final debrief that was mandatory for all racers. The judges reported that this was a good clean race with only 18 potential rule violations that had to be investigated, of which 5 were eliminated after investigation. This might seem like a lot, but when you multiply almost 50 race teams by 6 stops by the number of rules, it's really quite small. As I reported yesterday, team Cool Beans had zero penalties so none of the 18 were ours.

Then we went upstairs to receive our handicap from Marvin, and sign off our completed score sheet. Our final handicap is 139.82 knots for our Cessna Skylane C182S, which seems about right. We are getting very excited to hear the results which will be announced at the banquet tonight! In the meantime, Linda and Barbara have gone to church with instructions to pray, and I went to the gym, then we'll have a few free hours this afternoon to explore Mobile before the big reveal tonight.