Editor’s Note: On October 26th, 2014, Steve Heineman piloted Carol Teuscher and me to Indianapolis and back. Flying in his Cessna 185 Skywagon, we departed in the morning from Chicago Executive Airport  in Wheeling, Illinois, had lunch at Rick’s Cafe Boatyard at the Eagle Creek Airport in Indianapolis, and then returned that afternoon.

It was a sunny, crisp fall day as we first glimpsed the Chicago Loop skyline and flew over the just demolished bleachers of Wrigley Field. Then our flight  plan took  us over Belmont Harbor and south along the Lake Michigan shore.

No one was swimming at either North Avenue or Oak Street Beach, but the apartment buildings of the Gold Coast stood silent watch nonetheless. Proceeding over Navy Pier and the locks of the Chicago River we had a good view of Maggie Daley and Millennium Parks, Monroe Street, Burnham and 31st Street Harbors, McCormick Place, the University of Chicago Campus in Hyde Park, and Lake Calumet.

The leaves were turning color as we crossed into Indiana and flew over windmill farms, the Wabash River, and farmers harvesting their crops on the Sabbath. We landed by the Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indianapolis. After lunch, our return flight gave us a nice view of the downtown Indianapolis skyline and recent developments interspersed throughout Indiana’s rich farmland.

Approaching the Loop from the south, we passed the Museum of Science and Industry and U.S. Cellular Field. We continued north on the west side of the Loop’s skyscrapers.

While many of the sights were familiar ones, the three of us couldn’t have asked for a better day for high school friends to revisit familiar places and take in new sights as well.