Day 38 - All good things comes to an end

A very early start had us taxi-ing out to the runway just on first light. With no other traffic around I did a radio call any way. To our surprise an emergency chopper called in stating it was crossing the field at low level on its way to drop causality off to the local hospital. It flashed by while we where on the ground. We lined up and took off carefully following the interstate while we monitored the engine. We climbed to about 3000 ft and worked together to keep safe.

The 3 hour flight went without a hitch. It was clear the issue was resolved, although extra caution would be taken in the next few hours to be sure. We flew over CREW airfields where we where meeting up with Ed a fellow triker who spent a lot of time flying in Cambodia. I cut the engine at about 2500 ft above the runway to practise a glide approach. At 1000 ft we entered the circuit pattern only to spot things moving on the runway. I turned the engine back on as it was not the time to play!!! It turned out to be the local municipality workers cutting the runway edges. We flew over their heads and landed much to their surprise.

We called up Ed who was about 1 hour away. I took the opportunity to do some further test flights by myself. All went well and it was nice to have growing confidence back in the old girl. It was also nice to fly on my own and do a few things that you wouldn’t do with another life on board.

Ed rocked up and we put the Trike in a spare hangar and headed up into the hills. Why? It was hot really hot and swimming in the hills was to bring great relieve. Ironically and strangely later that day on the way home we found a Thai restaurant in the middle of no-where. Yes the food was great, how else would they survive out there.

Ed took us back to town and put us up in one of the local hotels before he headed back to Richmond. That afternoon I received a call from the company that I had accepted a job with. They had the paper work ready and needed me to go back to Australia to start my US work visa process. It was time to make a break.
Lot went through me mind! This was an abrupt but necessary ending to our little adventures. The decision to either leave the trike there in Virginia and exit via JFK Airport or to truck it back to Chicago needed to be made. With lag times, ticket purchasing and the need to hangar my trike in a safe place we came up with a solution.

The cleanest move seemed to be to put the trike on a truck and go for it. . We decided to put Mr P in a UHAUL rental truck and to have tickets ready for us in Chicago to Sydney .We did the above although it hurt in theour hearts a little.