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Our cross country route was not a string-straight line from The Atlantic to the Pacific. Instead we zig-zagged from one important Overland Agency to another. Thus a normal three thousand mile trip quickly fattened into a six thousand mile jaunt.We arrived at Dayton, Ohio, on a Saturday afternoon on our way to the Memorial Day Five Hundred Mile Race at [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] Indianapolis. At the outskirts of the city we ran into the greatest people jam I've ever seen. Close to ten thousand were witnesses to a real earth shaker. Aviation history was being written as two planes were up over the same field AT THE SAME TIME. The exact date eludes me but it was late May 1910. The pilots were Wilbur Wright and the Wright Brothers' first pupil, Al Welch. As we saw history created I sat in our little Overland and said smugly to Gertrude "Those men are nuts. They gotta be." If someone would have told me that day that in a few short months, I,too, would be cavorting around Hammondsport ,New York in a plane with Glenn Hammond Curtiss as my instructor I'd have insisted that person consult the nearest [[strikethrough]] psychariast [[/strikethrough]] psycharist.  He'd have been off his gourd! More of bird talk later.

Our miraculously lucky timing placed us in Indianapolis the day of the big race. Thrill on thrill....I ;met the famous racing driver, Barney Oldfield. [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] He allowed me to drive his world famed Green Dragon. On the Speedway track I couldn't get it above eighty miles an hour even though not all the horses were going for me..speed beyond that was too much for me. I wasn't strong enough to hold the wheel on the oblong track. I felt I was somebody. I sailed all that day on Cloud NIne.