We didn’t start quite as early as planned in Abilene, but we managed to crank shortly after 8:00 am:
We flew over the Promised Land of free wind energy and then straight over the top of DFW:
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You might think that it is rude to fly directly over one of the world’s busiest airports. However, that’s often exactly what the best controllers want you to do because airplanes don’t take off or land vertically and, therefore, a helicopter direct overhead doesn’t present a separation challenge.
We stopped at Galaxy FBO at KADS, one of the busiest general aviation airports serving Dallas. There, I received the happy news that inflation has been conquered by our wise leaders and their appointed technocrats in Washington, D.C. It is just that our used minivan keeps going up in price because it is so rare and desirable.
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If you don’t like California’s lockdowns and 13.3% state income tax, it seems that they aren’t going to run out of houses in the Dallas suburbs any time soon:
From there, it was on into Arkansas and over the mountains to Mena (KMEZ) for lunch at Cruizzers Drive-In (better for sculpture than food):
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Our next leg took us to Jonesboro, Arkansas (KJBR) for fuel and then across the Mississippi river to KCKV (“Outlaw Field” in Clarksville, Tennessee):
Our final leg was to KSME, Somerset, Kentucky, a truly magnificent facility:
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At the Marriott, I wondered if they wouldn’t get more people to cooperate with their environmental goals with a sign reading, “Like Jeffrey Epstein, these towels aren’t going to hang themselves.”
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Dallas is only cheap for Greenspun, but there are signs of housing returning to normal with Calif* setting daily records while the rest of the country is in a depression.
It is interesting to see the dual Dell Monitor setup there in Texas. Given the presence of Dell in Texas, it makes sense. After all displaying an HP monitor in Texas might be as welcoming as asking for a Pepsi in Atlanta.
Once again, I am thankful for your aviation content and time that you take to write this information.
JJ: I think that the righteous are boycotting Dell due to the founder’s support for Israel. See https://www.dell.org/israel/ and https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1748346839357600100?lang=en
(Although I am not righteous, I am also boycotting Dell for their refusal to offer me the disk and RAM configurations that I want. The plan is to keep the next desktop for 8-10 years (current desktop is 9 years old). Thus, I want at least 8 TB as an M.2 C: drive and 128 GB of RAM. Max config from Dell seems to be in their Alienware line and it is 4 TB for the M.2 drive and 64 GB of RAM. I would rather upgrade more frequently, but upgrading is a hassle.)