Ready for Departure from Frederick on Sunday morning.  The weather is not good - 600 foot ceilings and 2 miles visibility, but it's better to the west where I'm going, and I know I'll be on top soon.

Arrival at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport.  The weather here is better, with the overcast around 4000 feet above.  After registering at the City desk in the terminal, it's off to Hornblower's restaurant for brunch.

While eating, I notice this Coast Guard 41 foot utility boat across the port.  Traditionally the hull is white with a black bottom, and I'm curious if the mottled gray color is due to the boat being under maintenance or if it's a low-visibility (stealth) scheme of some sort.

There's a baseball game happening, and the Goodyear Blimp is covering the action.  Getting back into the airplane, I head for Michigan, where I'll spend the evening so I can get an early departure into OSH the next morning.

Air Traffic Control (ATC) takes me over the city of Detroit at about 3000 feet - this is the major bridge between the US (on the right) and Canada (left).

Downtown Detroit.  The cluster of black buildings on the shore is the world headquarters of General Motors.

The original Tiger Stadium.

The new home of the Tigers, Comerica Park. 

Muskegon Airport, the last airport before crossing Lake Michigan.

Going "feet wet" on Michigan's western shore.  At 8000 feet, I'll be out of gliding distance of land for about 20 minutes.  Fortunately I know the maintenance at Frederick Flight Center is very good, even if the engine always seems to run rougher over water.

After a safe landing (on the dot) at OSH's runway 27, I exit to the grass and taxi in for parking.  Even though I'm a day early, the aircraft parking area is already filling up.

The taxi in.  I watch the volunteer flagmen on the left, and the airplanes ahead of me.  They soon direct me into a parking space, right next to the showers (bonus!).

One hour later, I've got my airplane tied down (very important as it gets windy and stormy here at times) and my tent pitched.

Across the "row" from me are Mooneys that flew in as a group.  As a former Mooney driver it's nice to run into old friends.

My row is mostly Cessna's, and in an ironic coincidence, Merideth Saini, another DC pilot, is parked right next to me.  We'd made elaborate plans to get in touch at Oshkosh, and they turned out to be unnecessary.  Of course, if we hadn't made them, she'd have been parked on the other side of the field.

As the show opens on Tuesday, I spend the morning shopping (new GPS, new headset, clothing for Cath, Ciara, and myself) and looking at airplanes.  Shown here is the Air Force C-5A galaxy transport.  From this distance, it looks like a regular airplane.

A little closer, one gets the sense that this is a Big airplane, but it's so well proportioned that one doesn't get a true sense of it's size until...

Those are 6 feet tall crewmen in that little door up there.... This is a BIG airplane

Such a big airplane, that it's nosegear is 4 wide.

Perhaps the coolest feature of the C-5 is it's ability to "kneel" for loading, just like an accessible bus.

Here's a closeup of the same nosegear but the airplane is now kneeling, bringing the fuselage about 3 feet closer to the ground.  When you're loading tanks or other BIG stuff it helps a lot.

Hundreds of people bring their warbirds - airplanes used in wars - to the show.  Here's a line of Stearman Biplanes.  Called the "Yellow Peril", these airplanes were used to train navy and marine aviators in World War II.

More Warbirds, including T-6 Texan trainers.

A P-51 Mustang taxis in.  The young lady on the right is a volunteer who works with a crew to park airplanes, keeping people and other planes safe from collision.

A super shiny Mustang.  Some airplanes are just the epitome of their type.  For WWII, the Mustang is THE fighter aircraft, just as the F4 Phantom is THE fighter for the Vietnam era.

The triple-tailed Constellation - this was, along with the DC-3, THE airliner in the early days of flight.

My next airplane - this refurbished twin comanche will be given to me (or some other lucky AOPA member) in a lottery next spring.

A brand new design for light twin aircraft, this Diamond TwinStar will fly around 220 MPH on less than ten total gallons of Jet fuel per hour.  Thanks to a pair of computer-controlled diesel engines, and a super slick airframe made of composites, the TwinStar intends to offer an alternative to high-end single engine designs.  Price is in the mid 400's new.

Another view of the TwinStar.  While the engine pods look like they house turbines, they're really turbodiesel engines.  But it's hoped that the appearance will have line crew thinking "Jet-A" instead of "100LL", since that's the fuel it uses.

It's always fun to see how people "dress up" their airplanes.  This Cessna is obviously owned and flown by a woman with a sense of humor.

As a big fan of the RoadRunner, I got a kick out of this logo on a tail assembly.

Look at the enlarged view of this shot, and pay close attention to the lettering under the cockpit.

This Lancair deserves it's flaming paintjob - there's a turbine under the cowl, which probably makes this airplane run at 300 knots..

Since people who like airplanes generally like fast cars, Ford brought it's GT production car to the show, and it actually won a couple of Sprint races against airplanes.  Top speed is 215 MPH.

A truly stunning paint job.

Oshkosh also had an air race from Dayton Ohio.  Shown here is Race 93, a Long EZ that averaged 183 knots on the course. 

Here is "Little Toot", a famous aerobatic biplane flown in airshows for years

The paint job on this airplane is amazing, using an $11,000 per gallon "harlequin" paint that changes color as your viewing angle changes.  I wonder how it's described color-wise on the registration?

At a charity dinner and auction for the Young Eagles (a mission to introduce kids to flying), the new Young Eagles Chairman Harrison Ford chats with EAA members.  He's a terribly modest person, especially for a pilot.

Aeroshell team upside down.