The Vegas Showbirds on the sixteenth day of the trip, and the final day of the trip home.

Thursday, June 28th - The Vegas Showbirds depart Elk City, Oklahoma on the last day
of our transcontinental adventure. We head west, flying over Amarillo, Texas to
Alburquerque, New Mexico, and continuing back home to Las Vegas, Nevada.

We stayed at the Ambassador Hotel, in Elk City, Oklahoma.

It is a giant terrarium, with indoor pool and waterfalls.
The rooms are in the background, each with a view of the pool, waterfalls, and lush tropical foliage.

The weather bestows intermitten rain and low ceilings upon us
once more. We taxi out to the runway . . . and wait . . . as the
ceiling drops down once more . . . the clouds descend to 300
to 800 feet AGL (above ground).

Then, finally, we get a short window of time to take off, (we have VFR conditions - Visual Flight Rules - ceilings rise to 1300 feet, and we take advantage of it). This shot is looking down at the
Elk City Airport as we depart to the west. It's cool and rainy.

Flying west, we see a windfarm (in the Texas panhandle).
The landscape is dotted with windfarms and oilfields.

Visibility becomes greater than 10 miles as we
travel west. The ceiling (base of the clouds) also
rises, as the day progresses.

It starts to get warm again.

We pass Tucumcari Airport, at the north end
of the town of Tucumcari, New Mexico.

The temperature is warming up, and getting
a bit humid, even at 8,500 feet altitude, it's getting hot.

Approaching Albuquerque from the east, we cross over
"rapidly rising terrain" as the mountains give way to a
panoramic view of the city of Albuquerque.

We continue on a west heading to Double Eagle Airport
(KAEG), which is located a few miles north west of the
city of Albuquerque. It's mid afternoon as we approach
the airport.