For those who don't know, Eureka is a small town on northern California's coastline. Believe it or not, it is not my first time to this area. Several years ago, I was passing through the area enroute to the Redwoods and a search for sasquatch. Back then, I made a stop at one of my favorite microbrews, the Lost Coast Brewery. That's all I really remembered about Eureka. And to be technical, the airport is actually a 20 minute drive north of Eureka (and our hotel) in a town called Arcata. What does that airport think it is...Denver?
This was thusfar the smallest airport I have landed at in the jet. We received a message during flight to go to gate 2 after landing as if it really made a difference. The airport has no gates, just a door. The runway is one of the shortest of the airports served by my airline. It used to be connected to San Francisco with small turboprop aircraft, but these were all retired a few months ago. Now the small community in Humboldt County is served by a 50 seat CRJ flown by a pilot performing only his sixth landing in the jet, at a non-towered airport, with a short runway, at night. No problem. As I was doing my shutdown checks, I overheard some of the passengers remarking on how they thought it was a nice flight. Maybe people are just nicer up here, but I thought I did a decent job of bringing the plane down quick, but not too hard. No time to float and smooth things out on a short runway.
Each leg, I probably forget one or two things regarding some of the automation/flight computer programming (Anyone out there ever use DOS?) I feel like the actual flying of the plane isn't bad at all. On the way into San Francisco, a controller gave us a late descent clearance, so I had to lose lots of altitude and at the same time reduce my speed, which can be a challenge. Somehow, I was able to pull it off, meet all the speed and altitude restrictions on the way in and even got a, "Nice job on that descent!," call from the controller. I'll take it.
As I was overnight in Eureka, I had some time in the morning to walk around old town, where I saw the brewery again as well as some old Victorian style homes. It's a nice little town. There are some interesting looking people walking around, though. Lots of beards.
Fall has already arrived in Eureka. I saw a leaf turn color! It was just 51 degrees this morning...brisk for my fragile body that has long ago acclimated to Southern California. Four more legs and I'm done for the week. I am excited to have some time to relax for a couple days.
