19. The Mississippi River
Air traffic control supervised the Southern Sun’s moves, for a lot of the trip. Smith has already received clearance for dates and destinations in advance. In the US, however, he was not required to stick to a set plan ‘til he got to Seattle, Washington.
Prior to that, he followed the natural flow of the mighty Mississippi River. He landed on the river each night and slept in his aircraft. It was like he was sleeping upside down so while it worked, it was not very comfortable.
20. Onward, To Alaska
It was late September. Smith’s American adventure was all too quickly coming to a close. He definitely had no intention of being in the air over the state of Alaska in winter. In order to move up his itinerary, he flew for 12 hours straight from the state of Minnesota to the state of Washington. Then he took a quick flight to Seattle prior to heading towards Anchorage, Alaska. He had a gut feeling that it would not be safe to fly there after September.
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