By 8:00 am we were in the air, leaving Miles City, Montana. It was reasonably clear as we passed Great Falls and on to Glacier National Park. We followed the highway through Logan Pass and crossed the Rockies and the continental divide going west this time. The views were spectacular looking at the sharp edged mountains, with snow in places.
We landed at Glacier International Airport for fuel and to relieve our bladders. On the tarmac was a Boeing BBJ 737 in anonymous grey and white livery. I suspect it was a private plane. Doug contacted flight control of our route back to Bremerton. They mentioned that a plane following our same route was 3 days overdue and could we keep an eye out for it.
Shortly after passing Kalispell, Montana, an emergency locator beacon signal started to warble on the radio. Doug immediately started a 360 degree turn remaining at altitude to try and determine the direction of the signal. He reported to flight control the location and pertinent information as well as when we stopped hearing the signal. We are not sure if it is connected to the overdue flight but we hope the information we provided was helpful. It is similar to when us cruisers here the emergency tone on our VHF radios of a mayday or pan-pan in our immediate vicinity.
We passed over Interstate 90 and through the Cascades and the familiar Mt. Rainier. There was a blanket of clouds from the west side of the mountains until SeaTac airport. We touched down at Bremerton airport. After cleaning the bug splatters off the windows and wings and tidying up the airplane and stowing it in the hanger we stopped at the airport cafe for a bite to eat.
While we were glad to be back, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Oshkosh. We want to thank Doug and Nancy for inviting us to share this adventure and airventure. It was an amazing experience.
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