I had a great time at the fly-in. I flew up Friday morning because it takes about 3 hours to fly my trike from Belen to Besley, and launching at 6 am sunrise, I would arrive just in time to land, scarf down a breakfast burrito, and head back through booming thermals back at Belen. So I got permission from Steve (the owner and host of the fly-in) to come up on Friday. The spot is beautiful.
The only downside was my ankles were eaten up by chiggers, no-see-ums, etc. Next year, I am wearing long pants.
I landed around 9:30 on the smooth grassy field, mowed just last week by Ron Keller (thanks Ron) and set up camp. It became extremely thermally and gusty at noon, then some clouds developed to cool things down a bit. Larry Driscol from Lubbock arrived around 4:30pm. He landed at Angel Fire earlier, and waited out threatening thunderstorm like clouds in the area. When they cleared, he made the short hop over to Besley Field.
Steve and wife Deborah came by around 5:30pm and invited Larry and me over to his cabin about a mile away for dinner. We were joined by their daughter's family, plus some neighbors next door. The view from Steve's back porch was spectacular.
After dinner, I returned to my tent by my trike and fell asleep instantly. I had been up since 3:15 am that day and slept straight till 5:15 am the next morning. I packed up my gear and loaded the trike. Larry and I helped Steve's family set up the breakfast. The first aircraft arrived around 7am, include 3 trikes from Taos. At 8am, my alarm told me it was time to leave. I did grab a breakfast burrito and then got started preflighting, engine warm up, and getting into my trike. I was in the air at 8:45am. I returned for a pass over the runway heading north, then turned to the east and followed the Rio Grande Gorge all the way to Espanola and on to Belen. I was on the ground at 11:30am. Thank you Steve and family for your hospitality and a wonderful breakfast.
