I had just gotten back from a trip to Alliance, Ohio, when it was time to repack for a trip to Oshkosh just eleven days later. I was traveling in company with Ron Brown and his 90hp Cub, so I was operating on his schedule, and he was getting an early start.

We departed on July 24th, headed for a border crossing at Massena, NY. At the time I had one wing tank out of service with a leaking crack. As we crossed into northern Vermont, I pushed on ahead and landed at Newport State Airport for gas. As I pulled up to the pumps, Ron flew by overhead. After refueling, I caught up with him before we got to Lake Champlain. I had to throttle back to 1900 rpm to keep from running away from him. We were flying just below the Canadian border, and Montreal was visible in the distance. There was a 30 mph head wind, so we were making painfully slow progress.

When we finally got to Massena Intl., we ran into a local EAA’er. It so happened that his wife was out-of-town and he had the house to himself. It took very little effort for him to convince us to quit for the day and come home with him for the night. This was great; he cooked for us, and took us for a cruise on the Saint Lawrence Seaway on his home built lobster boat.

The next day was much better, and we crossed the Saint Lawrence River into Canada. We passed just southwest of Ottawa, then followed the Ottawa River most of the way to North Bay, Ontario, where we stopped for gas.

We continued westward to Sudbury, where I did a 360 degree turn around a very deep open pit mine before following the highway out of town, I went thirty miles before I realized that I was all alone, and that I wasn’t seeing any sign of the Great Lakes, as expected. I was on the road headed towards the Northwest Territories. All the nickel in the ground makes compasses pretty unreliable. I headed roughly southwest, cross country, and intercepted the road along the North Channel of Lake Huron, eventually catching up to Ron.

It was easy navigation along the North Channel, all the way to Sault Ste. Marie, where we landed and cleared US Customs. From there we continued down the Upper Michigan Peninsula, where the rail road tracks led us into Manistique. At Manistique we gassed up, tied down, had dinner and crashed in a motel for the night.

The next morning, I followed Ron. Since he had a transponder, we flew directly over Green Bay as a flight of two, and got cleared straight in on runway 18 at Oshkosh, with the caution to over fly the traffic simultaneously landing on 27. It was Sunday July 26, three days before the official start of the fly in, and I was able to get a decent tie down spot close to the Theater in the Woods.

It was entertaining to go up to the north end of the flight line, beyond the war birds area, and watch the mass arrivals on opening day. I took in some forums and scrounged through the fly market and the bazaar. I wasn’t at all interested in the big weekend air show and the mass of humanity that involved, so Saturday morning I left Ron behind, and packed up and let the wing walkers lead me out to the taxiway to runway 36. I got in line and crept slowly ahead. Two planes behind me was a P-51, so I didn’t dally. I took of, and as I climbed out, the P-51 whizzed by underneath me. Man, this was a crazy place! I made a right turn out before reaching the cross runway, 9-27, and headed out across Lake Winnebago.

I proceeded up the Door Peninsula, east of Green Bay, and island hopped across the straight to Manistique. From there it was up the tracks to Chippewa County Int’l to top off and alert Canadian Customs.

I passed south of Sault Ste. Marie, crossed the Saint Mary’s River, and retraced my route along the North Channel, over Sudbury to North Bay for more gas.

It was getting late in the day, so part way down the Ottawa River, I landed on the grass strip at Deep River and camped for the night. One of the residents, who lived beside the runway, welcomed me and ran his garden hose out so that I could have water. But for the buzzing of hordes of mosquitoes, it was a peaceful night.

The next morning I rolled up my soggy tent and wiped the heavy dew off my wind shield. The flight back to Massena Int’l was uneventful. I slalomed around the piles of Canada goose poop on the taxiway, and pulled up to the deserted terminal building. After finding a pay phone inside, I called US Customs. I had flown back into the country unannounced, but they couldn’t be bothered to come out and inspect me, so they sent me on my way. I taxied to the opposite side of the airport to gas up at the FBO before departing to the east.

The flying was good, and arrived back at Norridgewock just after noon, as EAA Chapter 736 was starting to pack up their weekend fly-in. I made a low victory pass down the runway before landing.