Back in India again

Hi from India,

Karen and I had a long trip back, complicated by aircraft maintenance issues and an overnight stay in Chicago. The flight itself was supposed to leave just after we got to Chicago but they boarded the plane and then decided it wasn't airworthy and offloaded everyone to a hotel at the O'Hare airport. We got food vouchers and then got up the next morning and took a taxi back to the airport finally boarding about 10 a.m. for our flight that took off at 11:30 a.m. That was fine because we flew all day and all night and into the next day and arrived in Delhi at 1 p.m. local time, so it was perfect for Karen to see the roads and cows, pigs, dogs, and the Delhi driving experience, which is a lot like the old E-ticket rides at Disneyland. When our driver missed a turn taking us to the grocery store, I told him where to go and he did a u-turn across 6 lanes of traffic and Karen was about ready to jump ship, but it is routine over here and no one got hurt.

Our flight itself was routine with a cool screen on the back of every seat that had games and movies and TV shows and a moving map of our flight with all the flight information. Of course I would be interested in that and watched it a lot as we flew almost due North out of Chicago, crossing over Mackinac Island in Northern Michigan and going straight up into Canada finally crossing into Greenland and North of Sweden and coming down through Russia even North and East of Moscow as we crossed a lot of Western Russia and down into Afghanistan and Pakistan and back into India. The last two hours of the route was very familiar as we retraced the trip I had just done in the Citation to Tblisi, Georgia. I was more relaxed this time about flying over a supposed war zone. I was surprised that our fully loaded Boeing 777 started out at 31,000 feet and stayed there for many hours. That is not a flight altitude that I occupy much anymore, but then my airplane doesn't way hundreds of thousands of pounds, either. The highest we got was 37,000 feet and that was only for about the last hour of the flight before we started down into Delhi.

Karen and I were exhausted after we got here. I noticed the jet lag more this time than when I was in the USA. I think I may have been running on adrenaline or something there because of the new grandbaby and seeing my kids, etc., but coming back here we were both noticeably tired and of course I had to go flying the very next morning with a 7:30 a.m. departure so I had a 4:30 a.m. alarm to get up and go flying. It all went well and after arrival at our destination about 10 a.m. I went straight to my room and slept several hours until lunch. Then I got up, ate, and went back to bed for two more hours before we headed back to Delhi. Everything went well and I am starting to feel human again although it will take a week or so before it's totally normal.

I have to go into the office today and get a lot of the financial stuff set straight and so I will keep this relatively short. Look for a long Delhi letter that will explain our Texas visit and more detail about how things are going. We are doing well and I think Karen is adjusting well. She will have some funny stories to tell.

Take care,

Dan