Lethbridge -- it's almost Pacific time.

So I did get up early (530am) and got a taxi out to the plane by 615am.

The weather was beautiful - the sun was just coming up over the Prairie, not a cloud in the sky, and just a hint of a breeze. I went through my preflight preparations and talked to the Flight Service Specialist about the weather and my flight plan by 7am. He explained about a trowal (Trough of Warm Air Aloft) that was making it's way up in a line from Regina to Lethbridge, said I might expect some light showers, but ceiling should remain at 12000 ft. He warned of the potential for isolated convective thunderstorm activity along my route, but assured me it should be isolated and I would see it, if any, from a long way away and be able to divert around.

I got aloft by 730am, and flew a rather smooth flight at 6500 ft to Regina, refueled, and quickly continued on to Lethbridge, overflying Moose Jaw, Swift Current and Medicine Hat. A little turbulence from surface heating nearing Medicine Hat, but I am now in Lethbridge by noon and refueled again.

It was quite quiet on the radio after Regina, so I tuned in the Sunday Farm report on the ADF (Auto-Direction Finder) radio - the older navigational beacons are broadcast in the low AM band. In fact, you can use AM Radio stations for directional beacons, providing you know exactly where the transmitter tower is. They are sometimes marked on aviation maps for this purpose. We may not have had an 8-track tape but Willie Nelson and Rita McIntyre and Shania Twain are still popular on Prairie radio. At least it's (somewhat) more interesting than listening to the station ID broadcasts in Morse code!

I toyed briefly with the idea of continuing on to Cranbrook, as the weather looks good from here. But the aviation weather forecast just issued a revised AIRMET (special notice) that warns of "patchy moderate lee wave activity from surface to 12000 ft" in an area from just west of Lethbridge to Castlegar and Banff in the north end. Plus there is a PIREP (Pilot Report) from a Cessna 182 over Cranbrook at 11500 ft that says "MDT TO SEV MECH AND LEE WAVE OVER RIDGES ". Mountain waves are another one of those horror stories that groundschool instructors like to beat into you, where the wind whips over the mountains and the mountains act like the rocks in river rapids, stirring up the wind up and down and around and generally not a good place to try and take an airplane. So again, grounded by weather.

I also considered heading up to Calgary to see my brother overnight. But, again, that lee wave activity extends up to Banff across the foothills, and eastward of that is strong thunderstorm potential.

But early morning promises to be great again. Except for the upper level wind forecast. We'll see.