Yesterday my wife and I returned home (P52 Cottonwood Az.) from a trip to the Bay area to see our first grandchild. We took Victor 12 across the desert to KWJF (Fox Field Lancaster Ca) in our Cessna 182M that we have loved for the past 17 years.

I have had a panel mount Apollo Flybuddy 820 GPS for the past 15 years that performed flawlessly until I pre-flighted for this trip. It did not find any satellites and recently had encountered a software problem that is universal for this old instrument. It did not delay our trip because we have a yoke mount Lowrance 1000C with the terrain avoidance database.

The trip across the desert and up the central valley of California was great. Albuquerque, Socal, Joshua, Bakersfield, Fresno, and Norcal approaches were all courteous and helpfull. We turned west at El Nido VOR and over the ridge at Mount Hamilton into the San Jose Valley of Smog. We found Reid Hillview (KRHV) just on the far side of the ridge and rode the barn door flaps into 31 R. The airport people were accomadating and friendly. By the way, we chose KRHV at the suggestion of our flying buddies.

After two days of GaGa over the baby we came home yesterday just ahead of the front moving in off the Pacific. Home bound we had heat chop over the desert and Broken cumulus building at 10,000 MSL but easily suffered the bumps beneath it.

We stopped at Victorville (KVCV) for a late lunch and were treated to a freebie by Million Air Aviation. After a 4.8 hour flight we dropped into the Verde Valley happy with our excursion.

Flying experiences like this, we cherish because we know they won't last forever.