UPDATE:
Warren and I made it home this past Friday evening. While the blog had not been updated in some time (due to the lack of internet service for the last few days of our trip) I will be updating the blog to include the rest of our flight as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and continued support. Check back soon for those updates!

Day 6:
This morning we woke up to high winds and heavy rain in New Orleans. Joe took Warren and I to the airport around Noon, and we sat in the FBO getting weather briefings and watching the weather move in for a couple of hours. Around 2pm, we got a loaner car from the airport and drove a couple of blocks to a bar & grill for lunch. At 3pm, warren and I walked outside to clearing skies and light winds. We headed back to Lakefront airport, obtained another weather briefing from flight service, hopped in the airplane and headed West yet again.

Our flight today was about 3.5 hours, and we watched the sun set towards the last 45 minutes of the flight. The last part of our flight was made at night, on the way to Huntsville, Texas, which is about an hour north of Houston.

Bill & Una Grace, my dad's wife's parents, live in Huntsville and met warren and I at the Huntsville airport when we landed. They treated us to an excellent home-cooked meal, and we will stay the night with them tonight before departing in the morning for El Paso, Texas.

Day 5:
We left Tallahassee this morning around 8:45am with beautiful weather and nice tailwinds. The weather briefing that I received earlier in the morning informed us of a weather system moving along the Louisiana/Texas border, which would not enable us to make our original intended destination of Huntsville, Texas tonight. I re-planned our flight to New Orleans Lakefront airport, which is on Lake Pontchartrain on the North side of New Orleans.


















Although the flight from Tallahassee to New Orleans lasted about 2 hours and 45 minutes, Warren fell asleep about half way through, and discovered that the shoulder harnesses in the airplane make it extremely comfortable to take an in-flight nap!



















We landed around 11:15am in New Orleans and called my cousin Christiana, who we met up with for lunch during her lunch break from work. Warren and I took Christiana's car when she went back to work, and drove down to the French Quarter to check out the sights and walk around the Bourbon Street vicinity.



































This evening, we went to dinner with Christiana at Landry's, the restaurant where her boyfriend Joe works in the French Quarter. I had Blackened Shrimp & Crab in some sort of amazingly delicious Creole spicy sauce, then a huge plate of Crab Cakes which I was unable to finish, but I'll save them for breakfast tomorrow.

We are spending the night with Christiana, her boyfriend Joe and their dog Dixie.

Day 4:
Again, another 8am wake up call, and another early taxi to the airport. Warren and I de-iced the wings of the plane with a towel, and by the time our pre-flight was done, the temperature had risen to around 50 degrees; the warmest temperature we had seen for the past few days.


We departed Wilmington around 9:45am and flew about two hours to Beaufort, South Carolina where my friend Scott Thomason is based at the Marine Core Air Station. We had brunch with Scott, then took off and continued South.


Warren called home somewhere near Charlotte, South Carolina (Below)



A few hours later, we landed in Quincy, Florida which is North of Tallahassee. After topping off the fuel and talking to a few of the skydivers there, we flew South to Tallahassee, where the FBO there got us a hotel for the night.



We will depart tomorrow morning around 8:30am, and we are hoping to make it to Huntsville, Texas tomorrow night.

The hats are from Mike Dupont, who did the pre-buy and annual inspection on the plane in Taunton, Mass. Thanks Mike, we couldn't have done this without you! Hats off (or on?) to you!


Thanks to everyone for following us along on our adventure. The blog seems to have become extremely popular, and Warren and I appreciate all of the support and encouragement!

Day 3:
Warren and I got up around 8am to a beautiful but cold Connecticut Morning. After a quick cab ride to the airport, we were pre-flighted and departing New Haven around 9:15am in the crisp 20 degree air.




















We headed West along the coast towards New York City, and transitioned a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) corridor straight down the Hudson river, under the airspace for the big NYC airports. The corridor took us South through downtown NYC following the Hudson, right across a few of the main bridges and very close to the Statue of Liberty.


































From NYC we headed south for Virginia, and stopped at Accomac Co. airport in Melfa, VA for fuel. Total flying time from New Haven to Melfa was 3.1 hours. I took this photo of Warren with the 170 shortly after filling the plane up with fuel.


















From Melfa, we continued South and arrived at First Flight airport in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, where the Wright Brothers achieved their first manned powered flights in December 1903. The airport is set adjacent to the Wright Bros. Monument, which is set atop the hill where Orville and Wilbur launched their "Wright Flyer" from for many of their flight tests.


















Warren snapped this shot (below) of me with the 170 with the Wright Bros. Monument in the background.






























First Flight Airport and the Wright Monument, as seen from the air (Below.)






























From Kill Devil Hills, we continued South along the Outer Banks, which turned out to be one of the most beautiful parts of our route today. (Below)


















We are staying in Wilmington, North Carolina tonight, and will update with more photos and text from today's flight upon arrival at our destination tomorrow night. We have quite a bit of flying to do tomorrow, so Warren and I are going to get some sleep, instead of updating the blog all night (which, honestly, we could.)

Day 2: We woke up around 9am to a light dusting of icy snow, and realized that we might want to wait a while to depart, due to the cold temperatures this morning (it's 19 degrees right now.)

After checking aviation weather online, I discovered yet another hold back. Wind. The entire Northeast is blanketed by high gusty winds, so it looks like we will be spending the day here in New Haven. I'll update later. Thanks for stopping by!

Day 1 of our journeys technically started lastnight, when we boarded the JetBlue flight from Oakland, CA to Boston, MA and departed at 10:35pm PST, arriving in Boston at 7:04am EST with very little sleep or nourishment.

We boarded a train, which took us from Boston to Lakeville, MA, which is near Taunton, where Warren and I were going to pick up the plane.

We met up with Mike Dupont, who worked on the plane and inspected it for me before I bought it. After talking with Mike and some friends of his, I took off to get myself current in the new plane, and shot a few landings with the brisk crosswind at the Taunton airfield. Needless to say, my first few landings in the plane weren't the prettiest things in the world, but at least I made it back in one piece for lunch. I did more flying after lunch, and finally ended up taking Warren around the pattern a couple of times before deciding that we would depart Taunton this afternoon, more than 12 hours ahead of schedule.

The weather was perfect today in Taunton, with 10mph winds and clear skies. We departed Taunton and flew Southwest over New Bedford, Newport and then turned West heading for New York City, where we quickly realized we wouldn't arrive until after dark. We ended up landing in New Haven, Connecticut just after sunset, where we tied the airplane down and got a hotel for the night (that's where I am right now.)

Mike e-mailed me a couple of photos, which are attached in this post. We took photos with Warren's camera today, but I don't have my SD card reader with me. I guess we'll use my camera tomorrow, or whenever we get the heck out of here. Cold weather is expected to come through the area tonight and tomorrow morning, so we may or may not get out tomorrow afternoon.

Yes, the last few days have been awfully quiet on my blog. If anyone is wondering why, don't worry... I'm about to fill you in.

A few days ago, on November 26th, I made the final decision and agreements to purchase the 1950 Cessna 170 that I've been looking at for some time now. I've been making arrangements to fly (via JetBlue) to Boston, Massachusetts and pick the airplane up next week and fly it back to California. I've been doing a ton of flight planning and numerous other things to prepare me for the trip, so thats pretty much why I haven't been present much.

The flight from MA will most likely take me more than a week to complete, and I will cover around 3,500 miles of the North American continent, following the East coast down to Florida, then cutting west across the southern US via Interstate 10 all the way into California. I think it will be a truly amazing trip, and I'm hoping to be able to blog some of it along the way.

Thanks for stopping by. Check back soon for more details. I'm going to be taking as many photos as possible along the way.