Jay,
Just $60 extra for the flight, champagne, roses, chocolates and
pictures? What's a fantastic bargain!
I'm not surprise that the guys are more nervous. People who like to
be in control get quite jittery when they are not in control (speaking
from own experience here ;-)).

Ross,
You are right that airplanes just love winter flying. We always
get over 1000 fpm climb rate in the winter. The reward of winter
flying makes up for all the extra work such as pre heating, shoveling
snow, cleaning off ice, frost etc.. It took us less than 2hrs to fly
200nm from KHIE back to KPOU including extra time circling mountains
for picture taking.

The pictures were shot with an inexpensive digital P&S (Nikon
Coolpix 3200) through the old plexiglass. We are still comtemplating
different photo window options. We have decided to postpone the window
replacement and painting to a later time instead of early March. First
we have to decide on a design, then to get the STC etc. I have no ideas
on how long it will take to get the STC.

We are just amateur photographers. Rick has some nice cameras: Mamiya
645 and Nikon N90 with all kinds of lenses but we have not used them
much while flying. Digital photography is just so convience, almost
unlimited images, no waiting, no development, printing cost, no need to
scan in the negatives for editing, uploading etc. We are checking out
the Nikon D70 vs. Pentax *ist D/DS and most likely will upgrade to
either one after getting the photo windows.

Hai