Flying is loads of fun – but it is a whole lot more fun when you have a purpose or destination in mind – a reason to go flying.

Thelma Lou’s is a restaurant just a short walk from the Shelby Airport in North Carolina.

By car, it is a drive of more than an hour, and that drive requires dealing with the endless heavy traffic on I-85.  

Flying takes less than half that time, and is much easier.  

Go to your airplane, do the pre-flight, and take off.  Fly straight to Shelby Airport, park, and then make the short walk to Thelma Lou’s.  

The menu specializes in great traditional Southern country cooking, at prices that cannot be beat.

Not surprisingly, it is virtually a guarantee that you will be one of several other pilots there, from all over the Carolinas.  Thelma Lou’s is not a secret.  Becoming a pilot is all it takes to make going there quick and easy.

As a student pilot, at a certain point in your training you will begin making cross-country flights that require you to follow a specific route from one airport to another.  When you reach that level of flying ability, ask your instructor to let you do a cross-country flight to Shelby.  If necessary, offer to buy his lunch at Thelma Lou’s.  

Or when you begin flying cross-country solos, ask to be allowed to fly to the Shelby Airport yourself.  While there, park the airplane, have lunch at Thelma Lou’s, and then fly home.

On any cross-country flight, be sure to enjoy the sights – the mountains, the lakes, and on your way to Shelby, the Peachoid in Chesnee when you cross over I-85, while flying overhead en route.

Instead of fighting that traffic on I-85, fly over it.  

Flying is something to enjoy, and the more so when you can combine it with a nice relaxing and delicious meal.  

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