We've been stuck in Fort Smith for the past 4 days, low cloud ceilings and Ice Storms left us well and truely grounded. In fairness seeing all the ice was impressive, i've never seen such big icicles hanging from sign posts and car bumpers. We had hoped to hide MikeCharlie in a hanger to keep nice and warm, but unfortunatly it didnt happen and we found her on thursday morning well and truely covered in ice. But leaving her in the hanger for thurday nite sorted it all out and she started no bother this morning and completely clear of ice.

This leg I ended up doing on my own. When we started our planning we thought the latest we'd be back in Florida was last Monday, and so Meave (Marc's Girlfriend) was flying into Orlando to meet us on the Thursday (29th). As we were still stuck a good 1000nm away, marc had to find an alternative way there which was faster and less bothered by silly cloud. American Airlines helped out and he headed off to Orlando via Dallas on thursday morning, leaving me to look at the cloud all day.

This morning was different tho and the low cloud and fog quickly burnt off enough to get up above it. The route was down past Little Rock, across below Memphis for a fuel stop / convience break in a small place called Tupello and then on down past Talladega to Columbus in Georgia, south of Atlanta. 

First Half of the route was perfect although i did get thrown about by a huge piece of turbulence crossing a small mountain range. Tupello itself had two options for me with regards to fuel, full service or self service. For novelty purposes, over here at least, i decided i could do it myself and so was directed down to the far end of the airfield. Tho down there i found the nicest little wooden hut which i guess all the private flyers who keep there A/C here must use.

The second leg was a little more work. First off it was quite turbulent and i was getting thrown about quite a bit, then i met a band of cloud, just above me and at -4 degrees C any of the moisture inside them would cling straight to my wings as ice. Most of the cloud was above me causing no problems, but i could see very faint streaks of white here and there and it was very difficult to decide if it was cloud or smoke. With mountains in the area i didnt really want to descend very much, but when i suddenly started seeing little white dashes coming towards me, i was outta there very quickly descending and turning away from them. I altered the route slightly and gave the whiffy clouds a wide berth, before getting back on course with clear skies as i got closer to a windy Columbus, for a fun landing.