My camera arrived at 5:15 on Monday afternoon (thanks Rick!) and I was airborne by 6:00 PM. The weather was just about perfect. My plan was to make it to Goshen Indiana before dark. A distance of about 175 nautical miles.

I took this while flying across the the last few miles of Ohio. Just after I took it the sun went behind some clouds on the western horizon and the light was lost. I made it to Goshen about an hour before sunset. Everything was closed down. A Long EZ landed just before me and a couple of local pilots landed just after me. I know they were local because they taxied to the hangars and were never seen again. The Long EZ pilot had flown in from Maine and was also heading to Oshkosh. He decided to stay and called a taxi to take him to a hotel. Hotels and taxis are not really in my budget and the airport did not look like a place I wanted to pitch a tent so I climbed back in Niner-Zero and headed west. I flew about 50 more miles and landed in Laporte Indiana. The sun had set and it was getting dark and cold. I wasn’t going any further so I taxied onto the grass and started hammering my tie downs into the grass as there were none available.

I was parked outside the Laporte Flying Club building and before long a woman came by to see what was going on. She was waiting for her husband to land and she let me into the building so I could use the facilities. Then she called a friend of hers who only lived a quarter mile from the airport and is also a pilot.

Robert was there in no time. Super nice guy. A retired art teacher who keeps his plane at the airport and has an apartment built into his hangar that he made available for my use. That was after he took me out to a chinese takeout restaurant. We took the food back to his apartment and he provided some wine and we spent some time talking about flying and Oshkosh. He has been several times. He went home and I spent the night in his hangar apartment and got a great night’s sleep. It was very comfortable as you can see. In the morning I took a shower and he came by to have coffee with me.

Niner-Zero spent the night tied down next to a corn field and was covered with dew. It was about 50 degrees so I put on my sweat shirt, stowed my stuff, fueled her up and got into the air by about 8:30 . . . headed for Oshkosh!