Today we flew from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Fort Dodge, Iowa for a total of 786 miles.  I burned through 54.6 gallons of gas.  Our journey brought us through Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa. The landscapes across these states are incredible.  Both the sky and the geology are dramatic.  We got over the rockies today through the Wyoming Basin and I couldn’t help but notice how sparsely populated this part of Wyoming is.  I flew up close and personal to Laramie Peak and I got some photos of the contrast between the green grass, the rocks and the white clouds with shaded spots below.

Our first stop of the day was in Gordon Nebraska after making it through the mountains.  In Nebraska I saw what looked like something I could only describe as “velvety bumps”.  I took a photo of this to share it.  Nebraska seems mostly flat and slopes downward west to east.  I saw the Missouri river where Lewis and Clark navigated so many years ago.  

I’m posting a photo here of Lewis and Clark Lake on the Missouri River.  Along with other interesting views.  

Our next stop was in Yankton, South Dakota.  We didn’t stay long because of a very large storm cell.  I took a photo of this cell and made it the feature photo of this blog post above.  It looked like the beginnings of a funnel cloud.  See what you think.  In any case, we had to leave Yankton and fly around this huge storm cell to make it further east.  We ended up at Fort Dodge in Iowa for some well deserved rest and a dip in the hotel pool.

Tomorrow it’s only a 2 hour flight into Oshkosh and we’ll need all of our focus to navigate into and to cooperate with thousands of other planes to land at the worlds largest airshow.