First Leg: from Palo Alto (KPAO) to Sedona (KSEZ)

(Sorry for the delay in posting; the internet connection is not very good)

Hello again!

First of all, Thank You to all for a very warm welcome to this adventure/blog. This is very encouraging. You guys are great!

Today was the first leg. It started early in the morning in Palo Alto (KPAO). Maite and Julia had to wake up earlier than usual to bring me from Belmont to the airport. The day started nice and sunny.
Here is a picture of the airplane that I had already loaded and prepared the night before.

Some pictures along the way

Ponds with water-ski jumps and a circular field in the middle of the desert.

Typical geometrical perfectly aligned roads.

I refueled about mid way at the General Fox airport (KWJF) and then continued to Sedona, AZ (KSEZ).

The second part from Fox to Sedona happened at higher altitude and it was also more bumpy. At some moments I was flying at 10,000 ft. Very nice high desert scenary.  Flight following lost track of me on couple of occasions, probably because for their standards Cessnas 172's still fly too low.

Beautiful Canyon views in Arizona.

This is leaving California and entering Arizona. The Colorado river is the border between the two. Much more tamed at this stage.

Identifying the red stone and dirt country typical of Sedona. Almost there!

The airplane at Sedona after landing on runway 21. This one is not preferred since it is donwnhill, but the strong wind aligned with runway 21 was convincing enough. Spectacular airport on top of a mesa.

Overall it was a very good start with minor issues with the iPad power supply, which I use for navigation. The airplane GPS was my backup. Also the day that started sunny ended covered and windy in Sedona, but was not terrible. See the tracks I flew today:

First part from Palo Alto to Fox

 The second part, between Fox and Sedona is truncated in 2 tracks due to solar power supply problems with the iPad.

That's all for today! It was not bad at all for a Thursday.

Totals for this leg:

• ~580 nm
• ~5h 44min

(Keeping and updating blogs is more work than I thought!) :-)