Serendipity!

Well, now at Winifred, Montana http://fms.ws/Dji4m/47.55571N/109.37868W  A tiny town, one grocery store, one cafe, one gas station, a couple of churches, and two bars.  Serious dryland farming all around, lots of wheat and hay bales.

Serendipity - "... the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it..."

That's the story of my knock-about travels, many times over....  Seems to be especially so when things have been heavy going, then stumble onto a really pleasurable experience, it's happened to me so many times!   Today was feeling despondent that time is half over and done so little flying yet....  Hassles with trying to rendezvous with my new license plates....  Hassles renewing my internet pre-paid.....  Etc, etc.....  All in high 90'sF (36C) humid, and storms threatening.....

Then what a surprise!  Winifred is way off the beaten track, so I didn't expect Verizon internet signal here, and there isn't....  With no Verizon I couldn't call up SkyVenture on the iPad to get the location of the airfield, or phone the manager.  I could see the rotating beacon high on the hill, right in the edge of town, but every approach just ended up in someone's yard....  Finally got directions, and the airstrip is right in the edge of town but not near the beacon....  Just a grass strip, but what facilities!  I got into the pilot's lounge with the CTAF frequency, and phoned the manager on the phone provided.  He came over right away to welcome me to the facility.  A new 39 x 33 metre free-span hangar, with five super cubs around the sides and lots of room for me to unload the trailer inside out of the thunderstorm approaching.  Now I don't have to pack the plane away every night just in case of storms, and nice and cool to tinker on it in the daytime.  It seems this hangar was a gift from a pilot who much enjoyed flying from here!  Some Americans really do philanthropy in a big way, if they get to choose where the money goes.   The pilot's lounge even has wi-fi, so that's how I can send this posting now.  I think I'll hang around a couple of days and try to catch up on adding photos to the blog....

Winifred, with the enormous public hangar front center.

Unloading inside the hangar.