On Friday September 2nd of 2005, I flew up to the annual EAA Chapter 305 fly-in at Stanley, Nova Scotia in company with Steve Howe and his beautiful Funk. We got underway around noon, with Steve departing from Twitchell’s and me departing shortly after from Norridgewock. We planned to join up over Verona Island. When I arrived over the north end of the island, I circled once, and as I completed my turn, Steve went flashing by just to my south. I rolled out on course and hustled to catch up. It was a textbook tactical rendezvous.

We proceeded to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, where we cleared Canadian customs. There as prearranged, we met acquaintance of mine, Tim Foulkes from St. Andrews, who joined our flight with his Tomahawk. He went high, and ahead of us, and was soon out of sight. Steve and I went up the coast to the vicinity of Fundy Provincial Park, where we hopped across Chignecto Bay at around 3500 feet to over fly Apple Valley on the next peninsula.

We continued on over the Minas Channel to over fly Scots Bay on the next peninsula. A third hop took us over the Minas Basin and into Stanley. Time in flight for me was 3.2 hours.

As usual the hospitality at Stanley was outstanding. Some of the highlights were the evening fiddle and guitar concert around the bonfire and the Saturday night auction. We stayed right through until Monday.

Before leaving we filed our flight plans by phone with Halifax, then retraced our route as far as Alma, New Brunswick.

From there we continued more or less straight past Fredericton to clear US customs at Houlton. Two agents were waiting for us in their shiny new SUV. They proceeded to go all over our planes with a Geiger counter to make sure we weren’t smuggling in any fissionable material. I was first, and that was fine, but they got an energetic reaction from Steve’s Funk. They were a little agitated, and that’s understandable when you realize that it’s not every day that they intercept a weapon of mass destruction. But as it turned out, Steve still had the original compass in his Funk with the radium dial markings.

Next came the part where we had to pay $25 for the privilege of coming back into our own country. For that we had to ride back to the customs station. Now the sign on the counter of the customs station boldly proclaimed that they took Master Card, Visa, etc., but when I offered my card, I was informed that their credit card machine was broken. My Canadian money was unacceptable to them, and when I said, “That’s too bad, because that’s all I’ve got.”, the goon behind the counter replied, “We’ll take your plane.” I was just about to leap over the counter and grab him by the throat, when Steve stepped forward and paid my fee. An altercation was averted, and we were driven back to out planes and sent on our way.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, and went independently back to our respective airports. My return flight time was an even 4 hours.