Midwest and Great Lakes Autumn Adventure

Leg 8 - 10/30/2023 - Chicago, IL (KMDW) to Minneapolis, MN (KANE)

Leg Stats

• Time Enroute: 2.6 hrs
• Distance (direct): 312nm
• Distance (actual): 325nm
• Fuel Used: 29.9 gal

Katherine's office was off work the entire week of Halloween (for unrelated reasons), but I worked on Monday morning. I took a half-day and signed off after lunch, and we headed to the airport. Fortunately on Monday the weather was cold and windy but quite sunny and clear. I decided that we would head to Minneapolis and spend Halloween there. The weather was good VFR all the way, however there was a bit of light snow forecast to pass through overnight, beginning in the early evening, so I wanted to get there well ahead of it.

I also ended up switching airports before departure, since a VIP TFR popped up. It turns out that Biden would be visiting Minneapolis that week, and on the day we would be departing, the two airports I had intended to use would be within the 10nm inner ring, and therefore closed to GA traffic. However, just another 10 minutes drive away, Anoka airport in the north part of the city was clear of the inner ring, so I decided we would go there.

We had an uneventful flight there, and it was clear the cloudy and snowy weather was arriving ahead of schedule. When we landed, there were already a few flurries, and the weather was beginning to look quite ominous. I decided to splurge and have the FBO put my airplane in a heated hangar (mainly because I didn't know I'd be able to find a way to plug in and pre-heat when we wanted to leave).

As it turns out, we got at least 1.5 to 2 inches of snow that evening! It was Magic's first time seeing snow, which was quite confusing and amusing, but it was a good time. The weather the next two days was pretty clear and reasonably sunny, but quite cold, and remained well below freezing for much of the time. We walked around the city some, and visited a really cool Native American restaurant, and of course visited the very insane Mall of America for some Minnesota souveniers.

We had brought our Halloween costumes (we would all dress up as dinosaurs) along in the airplane, so we all dressed up and tried to go to a dog-friendly bar that was having a Halloween event. Unfortunately, we didn't have all the necessary vaccine paperwork and we weren't allowed inside... instead we went back to the hotel bar and played some Connect 4 together.

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