Dear Stefan, Sylvia and Families,

            After a very pleasant visit with you in Canada, Margaret and I arrived home yesterday night. Let me tell you a little about our trip. You already know how we flew north via Bluefield, West Virginia, Niagara Falls and Watertown to Ottawa. The flight went well, but I needed my IFR (instrument)-rating to make it up there. Ottawa was beautiful, and after a brief visit I took off again in the evening at about 5 pm. After take-off, the red light of my overvoltage regulator came on, causing me some concern. Since I did not feel like ignoring a red light, I radioed in my problem to the tower and was permitted to land again. The base operator was unable to make any repairs, and he sent me to a mechanic in nearby Arnprior. This was about one half hour by air, and I thought that after leaving the Ottawa airspace I could safely turn off the masterswitch. This would leave me without radio, light and the use of flaps, since the problem was electrical. Besides the starter, my engine was not affected at all. So I proceeded without incident to Arnprior, turning on the masterswitch only when I was ready for landing. The friendly mechanic there checked out my troubles without being able to fix it, especially since the overvoltage light did not come on for him. Because it was late and I would not risk a night flight without everything being perfect, Margaret and I checked into a local hotel.

            Unfortunately the weather turned bad, and during the next couple of days we had rain and very low ceilings. On Sunday we walked to the river in streaming rain and later watched the goat-show at the Arnprior fair. I swear, this was all the excitement there was!

          On the third day, the ceiling lifted a bit, and we flew on. We did not get very far, though, because east of Ottawa I spotted threatening black clouds. Gatineau just happened to be there, and I landed gladly. After tying the Skyhawk down we took a few things out of it and walked several miles before finding some food and a motel. Next morning was good enough to file IFR to Quebec, and I took off in a strong crosswind. In Montreal the weather looked much worse, and I landed on the huge Mirabel international airport. We ate lunch in the immense terminal and waited for the stormclouds to move. After an hour, things looked much better, and we flew on to Quebec. There was a little IFR-flying, but mostly we followed the radio teams and were in sight of the St. Lawrence River. When we landed, Quebec was overcast but presented no problems.

            From the Quebec airport I called Sylvia, only to find out that brother Franz was off to Sept Isle on a business trip. Because of a mail strike my letter did not get to him on time, and I did not call him when we were weathered in the previous days. So we missed seeing each other, however we were picked up by Sylvia’s friends. The next day we had a great time seeing the old town of Quebec and dining in a very romantic bistro. Excellent food and wine were served in European style. The only trouble we had in Quebec was with the parking meters which had the nasty habit of running out and unkindly pushing and rushing us. The weather had improved to sunny and warm. Hotel Frontenac which overlooks the wide St. Lawrence River, the Plains of Abraham, the statues, and the horsedrawn carriages were all part of  the charm of old Quebec. Outside the city we saw several very impressive waterfalls, including the chute de la Chaudiere, which is about as wild as the Niagara Falls. Ste. Anne de Beaupre, where my brother lives, is also very interesting. We saw the grotto and the basilica with the very impressive Crossway with fantastic religious statues. Ste. Anne really was Jesus’ grandmother. There is a great cyclorama which graphically shows the Holy Land during the time of Jesus. A lot of pilgrims travel to Ste. Anne de Beaupre, and in the basilica we saw hundreds of crutches from people healed from their handicaps. We even stayed for mass, but I discovered that the French used by the priest was hard to understand.

            Other attractions we enjoyed were a ski-mountain and a nature park along the St. Lawrence River. Of course, we did not see nearly all we wanted to when it came time to fly back. Our host and her friends drove us to the Quebec airport, and we embarked in beautiful VFR-weather.

            We flew southwestwards over large flat fields and crossed into the United States north of Burlington, Vermont. We went through customs there, gassed up and rested a bit. Curiously, the red light came on only once and stayed off during our next lap. New England was beautiful that time of the year as we flew over many blue lakes and wooded mountains. Beyond the Adirondaks we saw Saratoga with its race tracks and horse stables. Glen Falls and Albany presented no problems, and the weather stayed CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited). Further southwest we flew over the Catskills and wondered about skiing and resort facilities there. The mountains were quite different from the Pocono Mountains which we saw in the neighborhood of Scranton and Wilkes Barre. Here we saw long ridges, one following the other being quite distinct. We landed in Wilkes Barre, or rather the little airport of Wyoming Valley. There was a relatively short srtip which featured a cabbage patch on one end - honestly! We had been in the air for two hours and fifty minutes and gladly rested a bit after refueling. After everything was taken care of, we flew on to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and later bypassed Washington, D.C. to the west. The weather got a bit hazy, and it seemed to take a long time before we recognized the airport of Martinsburg in West Virginia. Since it was 5 o’clock and we were tired, we accepted a lift into town from the FBO and stayed in a nice motel.

          Next morning we got a ride back to the airport and soon were in the air again. The weather held on. We flew parallel to the Appalachian Mountains right through the middle of very beautiful Shenandoah Valley. The rivers formed esses through very fertile soil with picturesque apple orchards and farm buildings. Towards Roanoke, Virginia we heard of some bad weather further southwest and therefore turned southwards to land in Charlotte. I checked the weather carefully and decided to file IFR and continue our trip. We overflew Augusta, Georgia, which was unvisible to us and then had some real instrument weather till Macon where we made an instrument approach. The weather bureau in Macon told us that Tallahassee had a ceiling of 800 feet. While I did have some get-homeitis and did not cherish the thought of staying in Macon, I did have an IFR-rating and thought I could make it. We took off and soon were in clouds solidly. I was ready for that, but when that darn red overvoltage light came on I thought it was wiser to turn back. We were completely in clouds and welcomed vectors for a radar surveillance approach back to Macon. The mechanic checked out the plane carefully, but would you believe, no red light came on! After overcoming a lot of indecision, I took off again, still IFR. To our great relief, the red light did not come on, and at 7000 feet we were on top of most of the clouds. From time to time we had to penetrate the top of some clouds and listen to reports of even less favorable weather west of our route. The Albany VOR came and went, then I tuned in on Tallahassee. Our course was good, the red light stayed off, and I felt relieved when I could talk to my home base again. The clouds were less dense here, and the ceiling was broken rather than overcast. I made an ILS-approach and landed, feeling very tired because this flight was really work.

            One thing I left out above was, that this trip started a couple days after the beginning of the air controllers strike. We really had no problems, except that we were told to avoid the New York area, but that suited us just fine. It was a beautiful trip, and I am ready to return to Canada some future summer.