...of the clouds, get your mind out of the gutter!

I went yesterday for my fourth instrument lesson, and got loads of actual instrument time.  There was a solid layer of stratus clouds with ceilings at 800 ft AGL (1800 MSL) and tops at 2500 MSL, with a steady ten knot wind from the north-east, but no turbulence at all.  I couldn't have asked for a better IFR day.  We took off from Morey and got a local IFR clearance to practice some approaches, both there and at Madison.  We climbed up through the cloud layer, and broke out on top, and it was a totally different world up there.  I've seen it many times from an airliner's window, but never like this.  There was a very smoothly undulating layer of clouds right below us, with some huge, wispy cumulus clouds clouds still above us and around us, and a layer of haze that seemed to be above the cumulus clouds.  It was really amazing to see out the windscreen, instead of a tiny airline window.  ATC vectored us in to intercept the ILS for 36 at Madison.  We intercepted the localizer and glideslope, and began our descent back through the cloud layer.  It was really a strange feeling to know where I was and where I was going, without actually seeing anything below me.  It was quite exhilarating to break out of the clouds, and go from zero visibility, to a couple miles of visibility, with the runway right in front of me, when just a minute before, all I could see was the blank white of the clouds where the airport was supposed to be.  We got down to the MDA, and did a missed approach, and I had to do a climbing turn that took me right over the line of parked F-16s, where I'm sure all the pilots were watching me, amazed at my incredible skillz.   Or not.  Once we did that, we climbed back up to 3500 ft, and did a VOR approach into Morey.  When we came back down through the cloud layer, we broke out with a big brush fire right in front of us, so we flew right through the smoke, like we were in "Apocalypse Now".  Now I've been walking around the last day and a half, smiling to myself like an idiot thinking about yesterday.

I just thought you guys might want to hear that, so thanks for reading, and thanks for suffering through my horrible story telling skills.

Climbing through the clouds; cruising on top; descending through the clouds and then having the runway appear right where it's supposed to be 

Something else, hu ?

The only time(s) I've not felt like that was just about as much fun as a peson can have, was when that confounded ice would show up 

See my signature ?   

Yeah, I thought of your signature when I was looking at the water droplets still moving on the struts.