Dear Family and Friends,

By mid-November Lucky Lady Too and I were raring to head south from Boston to beat the coming cold weather. The New England states are small and LLT and I were able to stop in each. In the New York City area I wanted to get a photo of LLT and the Statue of Liberty. Since a mid-air accident last year of a fixed wing aircraft and a tourist helicopter the FAA has enacted new flight rules for the Hudson River corridor. We were able to get a helicopter out of New Jersey to come along for our flight to get the photos and video you can see below.
A short video clip with LLT coming past ground zero in New York City:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjmHJS0qquc

From New York City we headed south to Washington DC. Here again the FAA has enacted new flight rules to better protect the nation's capital after the Sept, 11 catastrophe. I have numerous cousins and friends in the capital and they gave me a tour of several memorials I had not seen since my last visit; FD Roosevelt memorial, the WWII memorial as well as the Korean Veteran memorial.
Continuing south with stops in all the east coast states we crossed the Chesapeake Bay and landed where the first successful sustained powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine was accomplished by Wilbur and Orville Wright in December of 1903. They not only built the first powered airplane but also figured out the skills for piloting an aircraft. The inscription on the monument at the top of the sand dune on Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina reads "In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, conceived by genius achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith."
In Ft. Meyers, Florida we celebrated Thanksgiving with family before heading on thru the Everglades to Key West, the southern most point of mainland USA. Returning along the eastern shore of Florida, past Miami Beach, LLT is now parked in the Orlando area to await our next leg.
Flying low level around the world gives a unique perspective on God's created geography as well as man made structures observed from overhead. Two items on this leg were most interesting. The first was the flight over the Chesapeake Bay where a dual-span bridge crosses 6 miles of sea before disappearing into the water for a one mile of tunnel only to once again appear back upon top as a bridge for another 6 miles. This is repeated again before reaching the opposite shore of the Chesapeake Bay making the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world. In the Key West, Florida area there is a 5 mile "danger zone" circle listed on aviation maps that rises to 15,000 feet elevation. Upon further research one finds that in the middle of this "danger zone" is a huge radar blimp affectionately known as Fat Albert
http://www.n-the-florida-keys.com/Fat-Albert.html
Fat Albert is tethered to a truck by a thick steel cable and rose to 10,000 feet the day we departed Key West and circled the "danger zone" to have a look. Its primary purpose is for drug enforcement. Several aircraft over the years have errored in flying into Fat Albert's cable, much to their demise. Both of these are impressive sites from the air.
Lucky Lady Too and I took off 9 years ago to see the world. To date we have been fortunate enough to have met the people and seen the wonders of 140 countries on all the continents. We have been west around the world in the southern hemisphere and east around the world in the northern hemisphere. We have been over the North Pole and down to the Antarctica peninsula. We have one more year on this 10 year world flying adventure. Next leg will take us into the Caribbean. We have a bit more of South America, Mexico, and Canada to see and hope to land in all the 48 mainland USA states before we land back where we started in San Diego. That is ... if we don't crash somewhere.

"The world is my country, all mankind my brother, and to do good is my religion." Thomas Paine.

Wishing you and all your loved ones a most enjoyable holiday season and a brand new year,

Bob Gannon and Lucky Lady Too