A month ago, my wife suggested that we fly somewhere for my birthday, so I decided to fly my wife and son down to Owatonna for some shopping at Cabela's (an outdoor super store) and have lunch at one of the nearby restaurants. I checked the weather and it looked like the nice weather was going to hold all day so I reserved a plane and headed up to the airport.
This was my first "$100 Burger Run" so I was curious how everything would work out. I was told that once you landed in Owatonna, you could simply call Cabela's and they would send a shuttle for you (it's about 1.5 miles away). I had heard there was also a courtesy car (which we later saw) but I didn't spend a lot of time finding out how to get the keys. Definitely next time though.
The flight south went very well, and we landed without incident at KOWA. I was amazed at how nice the facilities were...brand new flight prep room, lounge, and a conference room. All of it was free to use by transient pilots.
After a few minutes, the shuttle showed up and took us over to the Cabela's store. They have some pretty cool indoor animal displays, and every piece of outdoor gear you could imagine. However, we were hungry so we took a quick tour inside the store and then walked to Famous Dave's rib joint.
After we ate, we headed over to the store again but I was worried that the haze was going to close in on my home airport, so we didn't spend a lot of time shopping. The manager gave us a quick ride back to the airport and we headed north again.
When we were airborne, it wasn't long before I could see Minneapolis in the distance...at 25 miles I could still make out the skyscrapers, so I knew that the weather wasn't a concern.
We had a lot of fun, and it was great being able to fly the family somewhere for lunch and shopping.
