Flexible Hamburgers

I’m a little late on posting this blog but thought it still might be entertaining. On January 15th of this year we had endured many weeks of rain and overcast weather and were a bit weary of it.
One nice thing about a fast climbing pressurized aircraft like the Meridian is that you can usually get above the clouds into clear sky and bright sunshine in short order.
We started our adventure filing IFR from BFI (Seattle, WA) to AST (Astoria, Oregon) which was supposed to have a letup in the rain in time for a planned lunchtime arrival for one of those famous $100 hamburgers (with a turboprop they become more like the $400 hamburger but that is another story).
Once we were above the clouds at about 8,000 feet MSL we started looking at the uplinked weather to see if the weather was behaving as expected. It wasn’t. So we started looking at current and forecast weather for anywhere in the entire Pacific Northwest (another nice thing about a fast airplane is that your lunch runs can be pretty far away and still be doable). The only place with any breaks at all was Hoquiam, WA. so we asked ATC for a change of destination with an IFR approach into HQM. The only drawback was by the time we made the decision we were 5 miles from ULESS intersection which is the IAF for the approach into HQM! When cruising along at 180 KIAS that 5 miles goes really fast. We were able to prep for the approach quickly and made a nice approach and landing in full sunshine. The picture shows me and N46ME on the ramp at HQM. After a nice lunch we filed back to BFI, got onto again at 7,000 feet and watched with our eyes and the uplinked weather as the clouds all closed in, the rain returned and the entire northwest, HQM included, was back to making everything green. We landed at BFI in moderate rain.
What a nice but brief break from the rain!