The action is so simple, requiring such a small amount of effort. And yet I can't quite seem to get myself to perform it.
My hand is poised on the throttle knob. All I have to do is pull it back. And yet, in that move is the surrender of my own home and bed for at least two days. If I leave the throttle where it is, I have a chance of making it home tonight. The minute I pull it back, that chance is gone. And because weather is moving in, it will also probably leave me stuck in some remote motel for longer than I care to think about.
I look ahead. The Salinas Valley stretches in front of me in the deepening dusk. Flight Service is still calling the visibility six miles at Salinas, although it's deteriorated to three at Palo Alto and Livermore. If I could even make Salinas, I could conceivably rent a car and drive home from there. But Salinas is still 100 miles away, it will be full dark in only 15 to 20 minutes, and I'm already having trouble distinguishing the ridgelines from the valley in the hazy evening sky. I think about following the lights on the highway, but there's not enough traffic to really see the road clearly.
I reflect back on the flight so far. After the most amazingly thorough weather briefing a human is capable of receiving, I'd taken off from the Mojave desert in 85-mile visibility. There was fog in the San Joaquin Valley west of Mojave, but the satellite photos showed a clear patch at the southern end of the valley. That meant I couldn't follow my intended route north, since I have a non-negotiable rule about flying over a solid fog bank, but I could go west from Lancaster, hop over a couple of ridges by the Gorman VOR and then shoot across the southern stretch of the San Joaquin to the next valley west, which was also showing clear. Divert northwest to Paso Robles, head up the Salinas Valley, then up over San Jose to home. Not the most direct route, but it would get me there.
And yet, when I cleared the hills by the Gorman VOR, a stunning sea of white met my eyes. There was no clear patch in the San Joaquin Valley. There was, in point of fact, no San Joaquin Valley. At least, not that the eye could see. Below me was a thick cotton blanket of fog that stretched at least 3,000 feet up the mountainsides. But the fog stopped at the western edge of the valley, and the path beyond looked clear. I looked at the engine instruments. All was exactly as it should be. I considered the distance to the ridgeline. No more than 30 miles.
If I stayed over the mountains, I could see the ground just fine. I just couldn't land there if the engine quit. If I stayed over the valley, I'd have a better chance of making an emergency landing, except for the minor detail that I might not see the ground until I hit it. But it was only 30 miles, and the engine was purring like a contented kitty. It seemed an acceptable level of risk.
As I watch the Salinas Valley fading into the misty haze of dusk, however, the risk feels decidedly higher. The visibility even south of Paso Robles was worse than reported, and now it's getting dark. And I have another non-negotiable rule about not flying at night with less than a steady six miles of visibility, especially if there's terrain anywhere around. But I've hardly spent more than six days at home at a stretch in the past 12 months, and I want the comfort of my own bed, pillows, morning coffee and home so badly I ache for them.
