Arizona to New Jersey Cross Country Trip 2004

Aug 13, 2004 - Day 5:

We woke early and had a quick breakfast at McDonald's then headed to the airport. It was foggy but not raining - still not high enough ceilings to depart. We checked the radar and it was clear of rain in the area all the way west. We just had to wait for the fog to burn off to get adequate ceilings. Being that this airport lies in a valley, the fog was lifting over the airport but the surrounding hills were still covered. We waited til 10am before finally departing. Again, we climbed over the top and flew at 8,500 feet across Ohio and into Indiana. We had a 2-1/2hr flight before setting up to land in Shelbyville, IN (KGEZ). Approaching the airport we had quite a bit of turbulence due to having to get below the cloud layer and flying at 2500 ft.

I was born in a small town just about 10 miles north of Shelbyville in a town called Fountaintown. Not much is there but a few homes, a fire station and some businesses in the center of town. My old elementary school still stands, but is no longer used. We landed at 11:30 local time and had lunch. I still wanted to make Oklahoma City by evening, so we refueled and checked the weather ahead. Other than broken clouds it looked good. We took off and circled over Fountaintown so my daughter could see where I was born, then headed southeast toward St Louis, MO.

We crossed the Mississippi River about 90 minutes later south of St. Louis and proceeded to Springfield and set up for a final fuel stop in Rolla, MO (KVIH). We called ahead to Oklahoma City and told them we would need a car around 6pm. We also took a few minutes to check out a couple of neat planes in a hangar at Rolla - What looked like a P51 and some sort of Navy trainer. Don't know who they belonged to, but thwy sure looked cool. Pardon me for not being up to date om my military aircraft designations - it's just never been a big interest of mine.

We departed Rolla at 3pm and pretty much watched the scenery go by as we flew on down to Sundance Airpark (KHSD) in Oklahoma City. We landed at 5:45pm and met a few people who remembered us from the previous week. Since the FBO didn't open 'til 8am the next day due to it being a weekend, we decided we wouldn't have to get up extremely early, but headed off to the hotel and got a bite of supper at Chili's. Once again, weather concerns were on my mind as we checked radar from the hotel. Most of our route the following day would be in and out of rain. To see how our 6th and final day went, check out Day 6.