As Lindbergh flies through the long, solitary night toward Europe, forcing his sleep-obsessed mind to check and re-check his course, he recalls the night he was flying the mail from St. Louis to Chicago when he first thought of flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh believed he could make that flight, and he remembers his nine St. Louis friends who helped him purchase the "Spirit of St. Louis" and realize his dream. Lindbergh describes the thrill of spotting the first fishing boats off the coast of Ireland, and then crossing the coast of France, and then following the Seine River all the way to Paris and Le Bourget field.