KPIT - Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA

World Heritage Sites Air Adventures: Comback 2 USAmerica Air Tour
Flight Log #03 – September 21, 2025
Edition Title: Prairie, Pyramids, and Perpetual Coffee
Log Entry by Mark Twain, Guest Co-Pilot

I’ve seen mornings in New York as busy as a beehive in July, but none quite so loud, bright, and crowded with orange cones as LaGuardia before dawn. My host—Cropduster—commenced preflight with a reverence that belonged in a cathedral, or perhaps a medicine show. He unveiled his “Diner Blend—Runway Roast,” rumored to have aged in barrels once used for Manhattan pickles. That coffee steamed the wrinkles right out of my mustache. Lani and Kai, our world-wise canine conscripts, inspected every preparation and sniffed each bag with the scrutiny of Treasury agents on bonus day.

With spirits caffeinated, we pointed our Tiger Shark into the blue, trading city for prairie with Frank Lloyd Wright as our guide. The first of his concoctions, the Fredrick C. Robie House, floated below—a stubbornly angular art piece daring gravity to file a complaint. I half expected Lani to bark inspection orders at the roof. If ever a man built a home with a protractor and a grudge, it was Wright.

Drifting along, we beheld the Unity Temple, where concrete poetry sits beneath the trees. Wright said it was meant to be “a meeting place for the best within us,” but today, it was simply a landmark for pilots, poets, dogs, and one visiting humorist trying not to spill his coffee on sacred geometry.

Soon we curved north toward Taliesin, spread like a cat along the Wisconsin hills, every stone testament to a man who believed houses should stick out as much as their owners did.

Lunch Stop: Slurp & Curds Ramen House
No sooner had we landed in Madison than Cropduster led us—by nose and rumor—to "Slurp & Curds Ramen House." There they served the legendary Midwest Sunrise Ramen: shoyu broth deep as Lake Mendota, noodles with backbone, Wisconsin smoked trout, sweet corn gold as the prairie, pickled ramps, a farm egg so jammy the hens must’ve been bribed, and cheese curds fried to a crisp. Over the top, they drizzled Door County cherry chili oil, a sunset in edible form. If solace could be served in a bowl, this was it. Lani, with the airs of a customs officer, approved the curds. Kai watched every spoon—ever the optimist for droppage. I declared it a meal to tempt Mr. Wright from the grave, if not the drafting table.
Fed and restored, we paid our respects to the Herbert & Katherine Jacobs House—a place as bold for its humility as any castle for its turrets. I admired its straight lines and sensibility, and wondered absently what Wright could have done with a roll of duct tape.

Bellies full, engines roaring, we turned our props to Ohio, chasing history across the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks. First up: Fort Ancient, earthworks looping for miles, an epic built basket by basket, proof that patience outweighs pyramids when it comes to leaving a mark. Lani’s eyes were sharp, ears angled toward legends echoing through trees.

Beneath, the sites unfurled one after another: Seip and its grandeur; High Bank and its octagons, keen on hiding lunar secrets; Hopewell Mound Group and Mound City—places plowed and penned into memory; Hopeton, Octagon, and Great Circle Earthworks—each telling stories that outlasted their builders and baffle their inheritors, myself included.

Cropduster mused—between map checks and canine negotiations—“What would these old architects have made of TikTok?” I replied, “No worse faces than plaster mounds,” and Kai gave a diplomatic snore.
The sun drooped behind a Pittsburgh skyline, where steel caught the last color of day—and there, on the tarmac, we found an unexpected coda to our journey. Lani and Kai made the acquaintance of Charles, a black Giant Schnauzer with a military bearing. Charles, I learned, was trained in both protection and search-and-rescue—no mean feat, and a combination that reflected, almost eerily, the talents of my own companions: Lani, the ex–Malay Special Forces sentinel; Kai, finder of the lost and hopeful.
The three dogs eyed each other like statesmen at a summit: respect, recognition, and perhaps a hint of rivalry in whose muzzle held the finer resume. Old skills, new friend—a reminder that every airport, like every journey, is a crossroads for legends of one kind or another.

Thus ends today’s log: in search of Frank Lloyd form, Hopewell earth, Wisconsin noodles, and new fellowship on this airborne ragtag tour. If life is measured not in miles but in stories, then today we traveled further than most.

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