June 4, 2026 — Santa Monica, California to Montpelier, Idaho
The adventure begins
The trip I had been planning for years began after a few hectic days of moving out of my apartment and getting my belongings into storage. This involved an all-nighter that ended with me sleeping from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 4 a.m. Thursday, after which I got up and packed the rest of my belongings. It took two trips in a Zipcar and a lot of help from my brother Danny, but everything fit in my parents’ garage. We had to say quick farewellls to my parents to get the Zipcar back in time, then took an Uber to the airport. We launched at 1:05 p.m., five hours later than I had planned, but I was relieved.
We had plenty of time to fly to Logan, Utah, and drive to Montpelier, Idaho, and the cost of the late start was merely some light to moderate turbulence. Turbulence of that kind generally isn’t dangerous, but it can be unnerving. My brother handled it like a pro, partly because my new Starlink kept him entertained listening to baseball games and browsing the Web. I had purchased a gadget to suction cup the Starlink mini to a side window. A day before the flight, I had tested it and couldn’t get it to work. Turns out, having it sitting on the dash on the copilot side worked fine.
Our routing took us past the Hollywood sign, which was not all that easy to see in the LA haze, then just north of Pomona before crossing the Cajon Pass toward Apple Valley, Hector, and over Las Vegas, where controllers asked us to divert to the east to avoid conflicts with departing airliners. Soon we were back on course toward Provo. Just before Provo, we turned left and headed up the valley, hugging the west edge of the Wasatch Mountains. Visibility was terrific as we flew just east of Salt Lake City and the Utah State Capitol.
We cut east through Weber Canyon north of Ogden and had an easy and smooth descent into Logan, where the line service was exceptional. They tied down our plane and drove the rental car up to us, and we were headed north in no time. The drive was scenic, through narrow mountain passes, and we reached Montpelier in about 90 minutes. Awaiting us were Rick and Liz Cleveland and their adult children, Tyler and Annie, decades-long friends of mine from Jackson, Mississippi. Rick had told me a few years earlier that he would come to see me run the marathon that completed my 50 states, and not only was he true to his word but I got the bonus of seeing the whole family. The pesto pasta dinner at Rooster’s Grazing was perfect for carb loading.