Annual Flight, Grounded

It's that time of year when Mary and I make the trek to Wilkes-Barre, PA to take care of my parents grave site. Knowing I am current but not as proficient as I would like to be we closely monitored wx Friday and Saturday.

 Rise and shine this morning and the wx looks good but very windy at Wilmington.  The wx at Wilkes-Barre was scattered with the Skew T showing freezing temps around 5000.  Again very windy conditions for our planned arrival and departure.  I didn't have enough of my own personal comfort factor  for the cloud layer and dropping out underneath if needed having to contend with the mountain terrain, well mountains for out east anyway.

So, this morning I made the call to ground pound it north. I made great time since we left the house at 6:40am and in two hours we were pulling into the store for flowers and mulch. I did note some temps driving down the mountain and temps ranged from 51 on top (1200-1600 ft) to 54 crossing the valley.

It was good to take care of my parents and honor a tradition for the upcoming Memorial Day holiday.  Flowers planted, mulch neatly spread and headstone cleaned, our labor of love completed.  We made a stop for some fruit smoothies and hustled the ML320 south for two hours and a safe return home. It cleared up nice here in Wilmington but after watching the gusting winds whip the tress around I decided to watch the final round of the PGA tour event instead of flying.