Two for one (#35, #34)

Have been a bit distracted from the whole landing in all the lower 48 states but we were back out on the road, or air as it may be.  We headed out Saturday morning for St. Louis. The weather was supposed to be great except for a front moving into the St Louis area. The forecasts had been saying it would not arrive until Saturday night but when I awoke I knew they were wrong. 

We headed out  a bit early and we're soon on our way to Georgia. I had not topped off from our last trip so I needed a closer fuel stop. West Georgia Regional fit the bill, just West of Atlanta. Easy in and out a competitive fuel prices.   Our

We were soon in the air and watching the storms intently.   We were headed to Saint Louis Missouri, and going to St Louis Downtown airport. When I first planned the trip I figured that would check off Missouri.  Well funny thing St. Louis Downtown is actually in Illinois. It is on the wrong side of the Mississippi. Thus I hatched a brilliant plan, ok maybe just clever.  We would stop in Missouri and tank up on cheap gas and then park in Illinois. This not only saved a few $s but gave us a 2 for 1 on the states.  

Brilliant as it was, I kept a close eye on the storms because a fuel stop typically eats 30 minutes out of the trip and the storms were moving fast. We did a quick turn, with minimum ground time and were back in the air in much less.

The last leg of the flight was only 22 minutes so once airborne, we knew we had the storms beat.  Checking in with St. Louis approach, I asked if we could swing by the arch on the way in.  The Downtown airport is just 5 miles from the iconic site.  Approach said to plan on it. Once we acquired the field visually, approach cleared me for the visual and then said that tower knew about my sightseeing plans and would make it happen.

Switching to tower, they cleared me over to the arch and told me to report when I wanted to come land.  Luckily things were pretty quiet so we headed up river for an arch view on my side and then turned around for CC to have one.  After that we basically turned to the airport, dropped the gear and made our approach.

They have 3 runways, 2 big and one small.  They wind was between them so tower asked if we could use the short one.  It is 2800 feet which is considered short for many high performance aircraft. The Bonanza is a versatile machine and can easily go fast to fit in the traffic flow of large airports or slow down for short runways.

I made sure we flew right at book speed on approach and easily landed and turned off at the first taxiway which was 1200 feet down the runway.  The plane was soon secured and we Lyfted into town.  First order of business was some BBQ to check out the St. Louis dry rub.  While feasting on BBQ the skies opened up but we were safe inside.  

Once the rains subsided we met up with an old friend as in someone I have known since nursery school. He gave us a walking tour of downtown and then showed us some highlights of Forrest Park.