This was a long planned flight - the plane (Cessna N854AC) had to be reserved, the route planned and the weather checked. Everything said 'go' for the camping fly-in leaving Friday. Departing Oakland via the San Mateo Bridge / San Carlos Transition the en-route part of the trip started over the OSI VOR at the southwest corner of the bay.

Note: I just look concentrated and stern - I'm really tense and scared in the picture above ... just kidding :)

The flight-log said OSI-Santy-SNS-PRB-MQ0-L52 (Oceano) so the directional gyro was reset and off I went heading out for Salinas. After getting Flight Following from Norcal Approach (Monterey) a more or less smooth ride took me into the Salinas Valley leaving Monterey behind. There were a bunch of clouds at 6000' while cruising at 5500' but they were well off over the rising terrain along the valley:

By the time I passed Santa Maria I was talking to L.A. Center and then said "bye" decending into the airport's vicinity. Since Oceano sits right at the ocean it's not hard to find. The beaches below were filled with cars that we zipped by when doing a 45-entry for runway 29er at 1000'.

It's great how you can walk off the airport into town, and keep your tent just steps away from the plane.

Next morning after breakfast and relaxing in the sun I headed out flying south. First passing Santa Barbara, then Malibu before catching a glimpse of the Los Angeles Valley.

I kept out of the busy airspace in L.A. and flew back north to land in Monterey. Approach guided me in along the coastline and tower cleared me for a left-base-approach runway 33R. Quiet a bit of xwind that day but with extra speed on the needle still manageable :)

By the time I took off from rwy 25 it was dark. So climbing out to the sea to 6500' gave enough spacing to the mountains before tracking to Oceano. All the lights were working that night - the instruments glowed, the airport beacon flashed and the runway lights wanted to be switched on. Nice!

The second night in the tent was not quiet as cold ;) Eventually I said good-bye to the beach and departed around 1600 local basically reversing the track caming in on Friday.

From Monterey I kept further NE to get into San Jose valley taking me pretty much straight into Oakland 27R. Welcome home!