It may not have been a club sponsored event, however, a big share of the active club members were on the trip.  Keith and Margaret Monet & Dewey and Sandy Harnagel spent 2 weeks bumming around the country in Keith and Margaret’s Cessna 182.

We departed Phoenix Deer Valley on Saturday morning July 26th.  After fuel/bathroom stops in St. Johns, Arizona and Tribune, Kansas, we arrived in Kearney, Nebraska that afternoon.  Dewey grew up on a farm near a little town called Miller a few miles outside Kearney. Dewey showed Keith and Margaret beautiful downtown Kearney that afternoon and looked for the old church where Margaret's brother-in-law used to be a minister.  We think we found it but it is a different denomination now.

On Sunday we drove out past the farm, checked out the old one room country school house where Dewey went to grade school and then into Miller where we attended a Harnagel family reunion.  Later that afternoon, we were back in Kearney and drove out to the Great Platte River Road Archway.  It is an arch that extends across the interstate and has a number of dioramas depicting the migration of the pioneers west along the Platte river valley.

Monday morning we departed Kearney for Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin with a fuel stop in Storm Lake, Iowa.  We met with Sheree and Nathan Harnagel, Dewey’s niece and nephew, for dinner that evening and then spent the next 2 days enjoying the big air show at Oshkosh. On Tuesday, we hooked up with Tanna Romberg at the Oshkosh show and had dinner with her that evening.  On Wednesday we really got a treat.  Nathan is now in a partnership with the owner of a North American T-6 Texan, a 600 horsepower WWII military advanced trainer.  Keith and I each got rides that included some aerobatics and Sandy rode with him from the Fond du Lac airport back to Oshkosh 

On Thursday, we departed Fond du Lac and flew down to Lake Village, Indiana where Keith had lived before moving to Arizona.  We spent the evening with his family friends there and then on Friday, flew to Richland Center, Wisconsin where Margaret’s aunt and uncle have a dairy farm.  We were there for 3 days playing farmer and enjoying the beautiful country side.

On Tuesday morning, August 5th we left Wisconsin for Brookings, South Dakota where Margaret is from.  We visited the farm where she grew up and spent some time with some of her relatives.  On Wednesday morning, we flew to Custer, South Dakota with a bathroom stop at Murdo, South Dakota, although there was no bathroom there.  At least there was a hangar we could get behind.  That afternoon, we drove up to Mt Rushmore and stayed for the night lighting ceremony.  That is definitely worth while if you get a chance to go there.  On Thursday, we drove through Custer State Park and then up to Deadwood, South Dakota.  This, by the way, was Sturgis week in South Dakota and we literally saw tens of thousands of motorcycles and we were not even in Sturgis.

On Friday, Aug 8th we headed for home with stops in Laramie, Wyoming, Grand Junction, Colorado and Payson, Arizona along the way.  We were all tired but it was such a great trip.  We saw lots of clouds and circumvented some rain but were never had to wait out weather.