Night Cross-Country 8/19/08

...Wow! Well it was not as hard as I thought it was going to be! We took off from Bountiful in nice and hot 92 F and climbed out north towards the practice area. We tried to do some ground reference maneuvers but with no wind it was not doing me any good. So we landed at Ogden to fuel up. To try and kill time until the night, my instructor called Ogden tower to see if we could come up and see what it was all about. We went up and met Steve, a very helpful controller. He told us how he did his job and showed us how everything worked. All in all we were up there for about two hours! It was really neat to see everything on that side of the radio. We departed Ogden and set out on our night cross country. We tried to get flight following but it was then terminated, so we continued on our way. It was spectacular. The air was calm, no traffic, and the lights were breathtaking. I now can see why my instructor loves night! We head to Blackfoot Idaho and make a full stop and taxi to the ramp. After a bathroom break we head off again to Idaho Falls, then to Pocatello, making full stops at each airport. We then decided to change our plans a bit and we flew down to Malad, Idaho and did a full stop. I have to say that is the roughest field I have ever been to. After taking off we flew to Logan then back to Brigham City and then again to Ogden for more fuel. We did a couple of more landings there and we finally (at 1:20 in the morning) went back to the home drome. He said to turn my lights off and not to turn in the airports lights on and to see how I do. It really was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. After landing we turned the lights on and taxied to the hanger. We put her away and did the logbooks and sauntered very slowly back to our cars.