John Day, Oregon

We are spending the night in the most wonderful FBO.  Grant County municipal airport in John Day Oregon is a beautiful building and Team Baldwin Family Flyers is hunkering down to spend the night in the pilot's lounge.  The airport sits on a shelf above the town of John Day with views of the Strawberry mountains to the South and the Blue Mountains to the East. We aim to be able to take an early AM departure to go East over the hills and into Idaho.

But, let's back up.  At 1:30PM Pacific time all teams gathered at Bergstrom's FBO at Tri-Cities airport in Pasco, Washington.  The plan was announced for the Race to carry on with a delayed start to be a fly-by over P&R field outside Mountain Home, Idaho.  How we get there is our decision, all teams having a PIC (pilot-in-command, for our non-certificated friends).  The message was to be safe and make good decisions.  Perhaps the deadline for arrival at the terminus will change, perhaps the route will change again, we do not know for certain.  What we do know if that there are some cloud and thunderstorm areas in the region interfering with our original route. 

We conferred with friends, consulted weather on-line, called for a weather briefing with Flight Service and reviewed charts.  Along with several other teams we decided to head South to attempt to avoid the clouds and rain.  After about thirty minutes we started to hit moisture-laden clouds. Earlier we thought we could avoid it but not so.  We descended but not too far.  Yikes - where's the closest airport?

Grant county!  Caroline did some tremendous piloting, flew the right pattern to land us at John Day's airport. Fueled up and felt welcomed by Leland.  Leland gave us a tour and offered the courtesy cars. This airport hosts a lot of forest service work.  The FBO has nice woodwork, art and lounges. 

At this time it is early am and we continue to watch and wait. Our overnight in the pilot lounge was comfortable and quiet. We are grateful for the company of our fellow racers and the gracious hosts at John Day airport.  Right now it is overcast, drizzly and pretty solid cloud cover. 
 Here are some photos of the flight out of Pasco, dinner at the Squeezeinn in town and views from the airport.