The terrain along the river below Davis Dam is a narrow bright green ribbon in a bleak landscape. The farms running along the river are irrigated by water taken from the river, making a verdant oasis on both side of the river. I check my time again and see that I have made up some time, but I am still running over two minutes behind my planned time at this point. I continue down river following the green ribbon through the majestic Topock Gorge to Parker Dam. As I fly over this area, I remember the hot summer days when we rafted down the river though the Gorge floating along in tire tubes to cool off.

As a Office Engineer on highway construction projects for the California Division of Highways and a Heavy Equipment Operator in the International Operating Engineers Union for the past 31 years, I have worked along the river in several different areas, building roads and pipelines. I have resided in Needles and Yuma, California, and Parker, Arizona. In fact, all eight of my children went to various schools along the river, two even graduated from Parker High School.

When we worked on construction projects in these extremely hot areas, we would go to work at daylight, which is about 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, in order to get off work by 2:00 or 3:00, because of the heat. This would gave us a lot of time to spend on the river, water skiing and rafting. I always felt like I was on a paid vacation when I worked around the river.

Checking my time again, I find that I am still running a couple of minutes behind schedule, so decide to push the throttle all the way in and go into racing mode. I use all my air racing skills to get as much speed out of the airplane as possible. I have been flying in cross country air races for the past twenty years. My racing partner, Esther Grupenhagen, and I won the largest women's air race in the world, the Powder Puff Derby, in 1990 and 1991, and came in a very close 2nd place in 1992. We also, placed in the top ten on several other occasions. Actually, we would still be winning, but the race committee handicapped our airplanes clear out of the running! We both have flown well over a hundred races and have numerous other Top Ten finishes.

I am now coming up to Parker Dam and Lake Havasu, but they are both so small they do not show up very well. I make a high speed turn around the dam, and at the same time, try to take a picture. I am afraid that I did not get a good picture of the dam., but do not have enough time or film to try to take another one. Later when I get my developed film back I find I do not have a picture of this dam.

It is a relief to turn back to the smoother air in the valley. I check my time and find I am only running about a minute behind now. I put the nose of the plane down and race back to Bullhead City. I explain to the tower that I have a time limit and ask for a straight in approach.

I land with only about 30 seconds to spare.

At the airport I re-fuel, eat lunch, and take a break before returning home. The weather is not bad today, only 108 degrees. Bullhead City is one of the hottest places in the U.S. In the summer time the temperature reached as high as 135 degrees and cools down to a balmy 120 degrees at night. It feels like you have walked into an oven at that temperature.