Hello Illinois

We left Wings field in the afternoon, and Alison flew the first leg West to Canton-Akron Ohio, about a 3 hour flight with headwinds. The plane came out of maintenance yesterday afternoon, just in time thanks to Billy and his crew at BPAir, and both the autopilot and right vacuum pump were working perfectly. Our goal was to get through a lot of scattered thunderstorms that were building all up and down the Eastern seaboard on this side of the Appalachians, so we chose a route that was north of most of the worst of it, and just south of some weather building on the great lakes. Sure enough, we had a lovely flight. We climbed on top of the clouds over the mountains, and managed to easily see and avoid the thunderstorms. At Canton-Akron we took a quick break, and Linda flew the second leg to Champaign Illinois. This is actually one of the stops on the race, so it was useful to see the lay of the land. We landed just after sunset, and having ensured the plane was secured for the night we got a shuttle to a nearby hotel. About 6 hours flying all together, and we are already about a third of the way to Arizona.

Some photos from our day.

The mighty Susquehanna

The Appalachians too

And now the plains

Interesting clouds

Shadows as the sun goes down

Last bit of sun