A wet, rainy cold front had passed through the area two days earlier. A layer of cumulus clouds was blotting out most of the sunshine last Sunday morning when Marvelous Merry Ann and I rolled down the runway. Fall is wonderful. The heat is gone and Marvelous Merry Ann once again climbs like a scalded cat. We have already climbed to pattern altitude as we turn crosswind.

Unfortunately, the overcast has trapped a layer of brown-gray haze beneath it. Though the air feels fresh and cool, it is kind of gloomy under the overcast. At the speed of an RV-6, it does not take long to discover an area out west where the overcast becomes more scattered, and is pierced by copious amounts of sunshine. As I fly under one of these holes, I can see that the tops of the overcast are not very high. "Wanna fly on top for a while?". The sunshine beckons, and in the crisp fall air, Marvelous Merry ann is not only able, but eager to make the climb.

Full power, raise the nose a bit, and within five minutes we are in a different world. Instead of gloomy, brown-gray haze, the world is filled with bright sunshine. Marvelous Merry Ann is sandwiched between the crystal-clear cobalt-blue sky above and a sea of brilliant white puffy cotton-balls below.

The unfortunate many, the earthbound, get to see only the bottoms of most cloud banks, and most are universally boringly flat on the bottom side. God has saved his cloud-sculpturing for the privileged few who are able to get a view from the top. A hill here, an valley there, all made of bright white puffy cotton balls. "This must be what heaven is like", I think after ascending from the murk below.

I turn Marvelous Merry Ann eastward, and am rewarded with two things: A wide split in the clouds that follows the Hassayampa River with uncanny accuracy. How do the clouds know how to do that? And my eastward turn has also been rewarded with a huge jump in groundspeed (For the uninitiated, my airspeed indicator tells me my speed through the air mass. That plus or minus the speed of the air mass itself results in my groundspeed - actual speed over the ground.) There must be one heck of a wind out of the southwest because my GPS reveals my groundspeed to be 184 knots. (For those knot knecessarily knautical, that's about 212 mph.) Of course speed is not important today, but speed is always fun. If I wanted to go slow, I would have built a slow airplane.

Yea, I know. I can almost hear those of you living in the Pacific Northwet saying, "What's the big deal about flying on top of the clouds? We do it all the time." Well, out here in Arizona, it rains so seldom that when it does rain, we all go outside and stare up into the sky in amazement - just like a bunch of turkeys. Days like this come along only a few times per year. For a moment, I wish I had brought my camera. Then I remember all my past futile attempts to capture the beauty of clouds on film. No matter how hard I try, I never seem to capture the majesty of scenes like these.

Eventually, I've made a big circle and have returned to west - It is time to head for the barn. Once again, I encounter the cloud canyon that follows the Hassayampa River Valley so precisely, and begin my descent down through it, and I am struck by the notion of returning from heaven to earth.

A few minutes later, I feel a thump, the sound of all three wheels touching the runway simultaneously. "That landing was much better than I deserved", I think. Perhaps Marvelous Merry Ann is rewarding me.