A Journal, with Pictures

We arrived back in Brownsville after a four hour flight from Tapachu­la, to Tampi­co, Mex­i­co clear cus­toms, refu­el then an hour and a half on to Brownsville. Due to late changes made by some of the group, the flight plans for all the oth­er planes got “con­fused” by Mex­i­can ATC. We spent the first 20 min­utes out of Tapachu­la chang­ing flight plans in the air then chang­ing them back after Rick nego­ti­at­ed with the con­trollers. This again, re-enforced the les­son learned sev­er­al times dur­ing the trip do the plan­ning before you start the trip or you and your fel­low pilots will pay the price. Tampi­co, was the best for­eign air­port expe­ri­ence of the trip which was fit­ting since Brownsville cus­toms was excel­lent, so we returned to the land of good air­port ser­vice we enjoy in the U.S.

That evening, those who stayed over, Rick, Con­nie, David and Eliz­a­beth, Joyce and I had a very jol­ly evening of cock­tails and din­ner at a near by Ital­ian restau­rant. It was a cel­e­bra­tion of great expe­ri­ences and new friends made. The next morn­ing we were in the air at 8:00am head­ed back to Hilton Head with a fuel stop in Ham­mond, LA. Tail winds eighty per­cent of the way so it was a great way to fin­ish an incred­i­ble adven­ture. 5560 nau­ti­cal miles and 44 hours of fly­ing over very inter­est­ing and beau­ti­ful land­scape, with vis­its to fas­ci­nat­ing places, with a great group of peo­ple, it does­n’t get much bet­ter than that.  After a steak grilled on our very own bar­be­cue, a fine bot­tle of wine and sleep in our own bed, we agreed it was nice to be back in the good old U.S.A.