Sporty’s is a mail order retailer in Ohio, selling among other things, aviation goodies. Their selection is limited to end-user accessories, and unlike Aircraft Spruce, excludes airplane parts. But I didn’t know that this morning, when I and two Hongs set out at 9 AM to visit them.

They are located at Batavia, Ohio, in the southwest corner of the state. That’s about two flight hours away, except for the small matter of customs clearance. Lacking any other plausible crossing place, we flew to the big airport in Cleveland on the south shore of Lake Erie, then got right back in and flew down the rest of the way to near Cincinatti. The near-ground portions of the flights were all turbulent but we put up with it.

We arrived at Sporty’s just as the weekly BBQ was shutting down and crowds were dispersing. Several departing airplanes just barely missed us on our way down, triggering our traffic alert system’s female voice. We had one or two last hot dogs, and set about to do …. basically nothing. We visited the warehouse/store, took a few pictures, tried and failed to get a ride into town for a real meal, and failed to meet up with an email acquaintance to get a ride on a Segway. I still haven’t quite learned how to arrange activities at last-minute flying destinations like these-for me, merely arriving there is fun enough. The question of “what now?” is quite appropriate though, especially to a passenger.

Eventually we decided to simply return to Toronto in one big hop. Two hours and forty minutes fighting a wicked headwind were enough to go direct to home base.

Ironically, when we landed back home at CYTZ, we were hungry enough to drive downtown, enjoy more road bumps, and try to find a place to eat. Saturday evening seemed to overload the Front St. restaurant strip, with hordes of hungry Torontonians circling around, hoping to find a place without a 45-minute wait. We gave up and drove instead to Casa Di Giorgio, where finally at 9 PM, we had a large if expensive meal.