Tuesday June 24

Breakfast at 6am, , FSS briefing at 6:30 am, both mandatory . We are still anxiously waiting on our handicap, the number we need to exceed to win this race. We finally get it in writing minutes before take off at the airport. Mary is very disappointed with the number. Almost impossible for us to fly no less exceed. We fly anyway, and get into the air in sequence. Once over the mountains we have a howling tail wind to our first airport, Miles City Montana. The approach plate shows how complicated the fly by is. You announce 10 miles out for the fly by and your intentions, whether we land or continue. We juggle the altitude to keep us above the mountains, and able to get down to 600 above the ground when we do our fly by. Next announcement at 5 miles out and then when approaching the airport. It is busy and hectic and exhilirating. Thanks to the tailwind we do not have to land for gas at this stop, so our "classic 20 fly by to continue 10 miles out," lets the ground crew know we will go on. When we turn towards Aberdeen SD we lose our tailwind. We try higher, but we have a cross wind that doesn't help. We do our fly by at Aberdeen and it is difficult to get down as the airport sits next to the town and you cannot fly below 1000' over a congested area. We are bounced all over the place as we plunge down, the timeing line is right at the beginning of the runway and we must be at 400' agl. at this airport as we pass. We get it done, and land to get gas and check the weather. We are hot, tired and hungry. The reception is wonderful at the airport, huge long sandwiches cut into quarters for us, fresh fruit, cold water, and fruit punch. We are handed a lovely card from the SD 99s with an aviation poem. I check the weather and the winds are not favorable, and we will get bounced all over on the next leg at this time of day, so we elect to stay in Aberdeen over night. We get shuttled over to the Super 8 and after a much needed rest we go across the street to a restuarant where we meet 15 teams eating dinner. Seems lots of us decided to stay. An unexpected surprise one of the teams treats the whole group to dinner! What a neat ending to a good day.