We don't see ourselves as a bold, adventuresome couple. Just a pair of grandparents learning to pilot an airplane and flying ourselves coast to coast. What a fine way to prepare for the second and best half of our lives. What follows is a journal of our cross-country trip begun a few months after Don received his pilot's certificate.

"Civilians" ask why we started flying because it's a rarity and they are curious. But pilots ask eagerly why we started flying, expecting to hear that we are fulfilling some life-long dream of soaring above the clouds. Possibly. Peggy grew up and lived her life around airplanes as an Air Force brat. Don's Grandfather, an aviation enthusiast, took his fascinated young grandson flying in his old yellow Stinson.

While there is a sense of freedom and adventure, for us, the decision to fly was more practical. We have relatives, children and now grandchildren scattered about the country and driving to see them has become much less fun than in our younger years. And commercial airlines are not conducive to World Harmony. One December night on our way to a family gathering shopkeepers bolted steel gates over the only food shops in a nearly deserted terminal while each hour through the night another announcement promised our flight would be leaving in two hours. With a carry-on suitcase for a pillow we dreamed of flying ourselves to our destination clear of the storms the airline schedules insisted on steering us towards. At least, we reasoned, we would make the decisions and we would know why we were on the ground.

Finally arriving at our destination tired and hungry and without our baggage, angst had developed into a resolve to "Do It Ourselves". Don's mother had just the answer and arranged for a friend to take us up in his aerobatic biplane. Each of us, in turn, "flew" this wonder from one airport to another, climbing, turning, and soaring on the cloudless blue California sky. We were in love.

Soon after getting back home we took our first lesson. Weather permitted only a few weekend lessons during the spring. The lure of a Florida sea-side vacation took us to Daytona Beach for a month of intensive training. Alas, the minimum legal requirement of forty hours of flight training was woefully inadequate but Don nearly earned his certificate there. It took him another two months of work back at home and many more lessons to earn his certificate in the Fall, a much better pilot than he would have been had he graduated from the "quickie" school. Peggy began flying boldly enough, but the golden ring of a pilot's certificate is still eluding her grasp.

After finishing up schooling, Don began the task of really learning to fly. On our first westward journey, we turned around halfway between Danbury, Connecticut and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, unable to find our checkpoints in the same haze that had claimed young John Kennedy a few days earlier. The next trip we made it all the way. Another time we arrived on a moonless night to land at a completely unfamiliar, untowered airport in Athens, Ohio. A trip to Niagara Falls had us dealing with clouds and fog and VFR Flight Following among the Adirondacks. With this vast experience behind us we knew we were ready for a trip anywhere.

One of our California-based children decided to get married this June and that pretty much put the "T" in trip. How could we not fly there? June would be perfect we decided. The weather would be nice, our airplane would be just out of annual, vacations could be wrangled around work and other relatives along the way would not be too busy to meet us at airports.

Don spread a huge US map across the dining table and traced a general route over the Rockies and Sierras at the lowest points. Traversing the living room became a challenge as sectionals were laid end-to-end across the floor for weeks. A cotton string taped to the maps showed the most recently selected route. Sticky yellow tags marking selected airports were adjusted as we refined our plans. The AOPA Airport Guide, A/FDs, and Flight Guides were cross-checked with the internet to determine which airports we wanted to use and which we wanted to avoid. Only paved runways longer than 2500 feet with both fuel and mechanics were acceptable. Food, lodging, and a courtesy car were important pluses.

Finally, the plan congealed and we would leave work a little early on Friday to avoid the weekend traffic and arrive at Athens, Ohio, long after dark, to spend the night with Don's sister and her family. We had done it once before so there would be no surprises. The next day would be a long one and would witness our arrival in Tulsa, Oklahoma where two of our children and a granddaughter live. We would then fly back and forth to Ponca City, OK to visit a daughter and our new grandson. From Tulsa we would leave for Tucson, Arizona, and spend the night with Peggy's cousin. The following day would find us in Oceanside, California, in plenty of time for the wedding. Our schedule even allowed a couple of extra days for weather.

During the visit in Oceanside, we planned to take the bridal couple on a trip to Catalina Island. Later, after the wedding, we would stop to take Don's grandmother for a promised airplane ride and then continue on to his parent's home for a couple of days in Chico, California. We would leave Chico and make a fun stop at Death Valley for lunch, then continue on over the Grand Canyon. If possible, we would get an overhead view of Meteor Crater in Arizona. Continuing, we would revisit the kids in Tulsa and Ponca City and retrace our route back home with another visit in Athens. Three weeks after leaving we would be back home relaxing in our own bed recounting our adventure having had plenty of time for family visits.

Every weekend we practiced. Because we expected lower performance from our airplane in the mountains, Don practiced short field and soft field landings and takeoffs, just in case. In an emergency we might be forced to land at a grass field or (horrors) off-field. Although he wasn't actually ready to land on grass, Don practiced by coming in over the grass runway at Poughkeepsie, our home airport, and skimming just above its surface. We learned to use our soon-to-be-beloved autopilot and all of our navigational aids, especially the LORAN. We honed the skill of locating ourselves solely from the VORs and the ADF.

Weeks before our departure everything was ready, and then one of the radios stopped working. It was returned to the manufacturer for repair with the promise of a two week turnaround and we continued practicing with just one radio. But as our departure date neared, calls to the manufacturer became more urgent. Then, ominously, the weekend before our departure, the second radio failed. No radios at all. No communication. No navigation. No trip. There was no possibility of getting the second radio repaired before we had to leave and a new radio costs about the same as one airline ticket to California for the mother of the groom. We pondered that equation for a while. The new radio arrived the day before the departure date and the repaired one was deliverd by a breathless UPS driver the next day. Too close.