Departure was planned for 8:30 local on February 26 from Steinbach South airport. Low ceilings and chance of freezing precipitation changed our plans for us, and by the time we actually departed we had flight planned to three different possible destinations. The final decision was to clear customs in Piney, with the thought that once border crossing was taken care of we could at least land at the nearest airport if we ran into worse weather.

Out of Piney the low ceilings lasted for only an hour before the sun began to show itself. Just past Thief River Falls we left the clouds behind and climbed up to 6500 where the headwind component was much less. There was still a headwind though, and both the blue skies and the headwinds were to stay with us for the majority of our southward journey.

Fergus Falls, Minnesota, was our first US stopover. Already at this point we had left most of the snow behind. While this was exciting for all of us the flat brown landscape didn’t leave much to look at. We were, however, treated to a beautiful sunset on the next leg. The red, pink, and orange added some colour to the otherwise dull view. But who could complain? We were on our way to California! We fueled up in Mitchell, North Dakota, and were up again to 8500. 20 knots headwind at that altitude, the best we could do, but the air was smooth and the frequency was ours, which allowed for some inflight discussion. Only IIK (with a laptop on board) offered an inflight movie. Despite our best efforts the FBO in North Platte, Nebraska wouldn’t let us stay on the airport for night, so we resorted to the Quality Inn..