47 El Paso - Corpus Christi

I drove to Horizon airport the next morning wanting to fly to Corpus Christy – but the weather briefer was very pessimistic about the weather….talked about possible hailstorms with hails of a size of up to 4 cm in diameter! (See warning)

So I decided to stay another day in El Paso. Phil was happy to let me have the car for another day. I went back and checked in at the same hotel were I spend the night before.

It is cozily located next to the interstate 10.

I spend the afternoon driving to downtown to have a look at the border to Mexico, which runs right along El Paso. Reminded me somewhat of what the border between East and West Germany used to look like: heavily fortified.

In El Paso, you really get to experience the way the south west of the USA is: bigger and wider!

Monday it was of to the airport again – and though the weather briefer was not recommending a flight to Corpus Christy – I decided to get going. In El Paso the weather was fine. Apart from the stormscope, that detects the position of storm cells on my MFD, here in the USA the data link function built into the avionics, enables me to get updated weather all the time – presented right there on my screen. It shows rainfall graphically and I can also check metars ahead of me.

100 miles east of Austin I was offered a rerouting by Houston Center. It would take me  south of thunderstorms ahead, and I happily accepted the offer. I now flew over the Laughlin airbase before turning back to the filed rote by Three Rivers.

I landed in Corpus Christy and taxied to the Signature FBO. I was to have a 50 hour engine check done, and the workshop next to Signature took care of that.

Then I headed downtown to stay by the water, and on the way I drove by UPS to collect the luggage I had sent ahead from Hawaii. I also picked up additional flight kits from Jeppesen, so I had had plates showing instrument procedures in the Caribbean and South America.