What A First Half!

Home Again!

Pictures above taken by my Blackberry Camera include:

Juliett Papa going in to the Jet Aviation Dubai hangar for a well deserved rest while we are gone

The Dubai Airport and it's inhabitants remind all of us of the Bar Scene in the Star Wars movies :-).

A Blackberry shot of the hotel lobby in Cairo- roughing it like Indiana Jones!

As Mercer posted first below, we had an uneventful trip back. After some sleep last night, I sent a few pictures from my Blackberry to the laptop to try to add a little to Mercer's excellent work. It WAS a long day, but the excellent international experience that Chris Hall brings to the party shown at its brightest as we flew for 3.7 hours from Cairo to Dubai. Going past the tinderbox places like Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Pakistan and then on over Saudi, , Bahrain, Qatar and then U.A.E. airspace, the Flight Management system and the communication requirements to report waypoints and estimates made the flight, done mostly at 45,000 feet above any other traffic, an aerobic experience.

What a pilot Chris Hall is! His understanding all of the nuances that we never see flying in the States has been essential to our successes in making every flight to date on time and a non event to the passengers! While we were busy communicating and navigating, it was interesting that we went the first 1000 miles of our trip without seeing another aircraft up there with us!

Another kudo has to be to Juliet Papa, the magnificent aircraft Citatiion CJ3 built by our friends in Kansas at Cessna Aircraft. The plane to date has flown 24.1 hours in every temperature from plus 115 degrees to over 65 degrees below zero at altitude and has flown without a single maintenance issue. Magnificent!

Lastly, the folks at Universal Weather, the Houston based aircraft handling and flight planning experts we have contracted for this trip, have done an outstanding job. Our assigned contact guy, Richard Cook, was talking or emailing with us each and every day of the trip over one detail or another. Thanks Richard!

As Mercer blogged below, the folks at Delta did an outstanding job of getting us home. For you pilots, the Boeing 777-200ER we flew in had ONE empty seat. On takeoff at midnight Dubai time, it was still 91 degrees. The takeoff roll was 54 seconds (versus about 9 or 10 for the CJ) and consummed some 9000 feet of runway (vs. 2500 or so for the CJ). The first 5000 feet climbing out with our 17 hour fuel load took about 10 minutes (the CJ would do it in 2, but holds only 6 hours of fuel at max) and our initial cruising altitude was 32,000 feet due to its incredibly heavy load. Later in the flight, passing London, we climbed to 36,000 and then 38,000 over Canada as the craft was easily 100 tons lighter on landing than on takeoff as it burned the fuel off. The 777 is truly a magnifcent tribute. Wilbur and Orville would be speechless at it's capabilities and the smooth quiet environment it provided us for the 15 hour and 3 minute non stop flight it made. For the flight, there were 6 Delta pilots on board that took turns flying and then resting as we crossed almost third of the Earth on a single flight.

Well, JP is resting, the ATW crew is now happily with their respective families for our 23 day "respite" from the wonderful journey we have all been blessed to be a part of.

We will cherish the memories behind us and, once we get over a little bit of jet lag, enjoy our time at home and continue building the plan for part two of our adventure. Thanks to all of you for your comments and your support of our blog, it has been such an interesting and rewarding first experience for us in this part of the internet world.

The next departure is on the afternoon of Sunday, June 8th, as once again we hand ourselves over to Delta to get us the 7700 miles back to Dubai where JP will be waiting to take us on to India, Viet Nam, China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, Alaska, Seattle and home to ORL at 1654 local time on June 25th, 2008!

Thanks for coming along with us! Bob Showalter

Roads to nowhere

Lots of cool hangars

Dubai International Terminal

May 15 a few hours in Dubai then home sweet home! When you look up “Long Day” in the dictionary this is it. Bob and Chris leave our great hotel in Cairo at 06:30 to get the airplane ready for our 09:00 departure to Dubai. As with every leg so far, our crew (whichever team is up front with help from our handlers at Universal Weather and Aviation) manage things perfectly. This is complicated stuff and I am amazed at the logistics required to pass through so many countries and clear customs in a new world every few days. At this point my mind is incapable of converting time zones and my body, God bless it, is beginning to get a little confused also. We arrive in Dubai with an 11 hour layover before our Delta flight home for our break. We get day rooms at the Marriot which help a lot. Showers and good food. Jim and I blow off the rest period and head for the malls. First we get miss directed to a kind of general purpose suburban mall. Our taxi a (brand new stretched Lexus) and our driver let us out. The driver says a taxi home may be a problem so thank God we get his number. Lots of hustle and bustle, lots of prosperous and well dress expats and locals are everywhere. After 10 minutes in this mall we realize we are in the wrong place. No Chanel store. Jim and I look for the taxi stand. We find it. It is in front of a two hour line of people. We quickly call our driver and hire him for the rest of the day. The next mall is all Dubai. Every high end store and the people are gorgeous. Some of the women are in traditional black, burka but with gold trim and $1,000 shoes. Some of these women, (you can only see their eyes) have on amazing eye makeup that will shiver your timbers! The building boom is alive and well here. I am looking forward to getting the building tour when we come back in June. For my wonderful clients that have let me take this time off please note we will have to talk about our construction budgets when I get back. I have come up with a few ideas to kick our projects up a notch. We will have to push out the ROI calculation a few decades, however. 11:45pm we load up the 777 with hundreds others. Delta and the crew do a great job but I miss our CJ3. Sixteen hours later I am home but my buddies have one last leg to Orlando. This first part of our “Around The World” adventure is over and it has been great. I am greatful to have been a part of it. Thanks Jim! Thank you all for following along. The pictures on these blogs are limited. I look forward to sharing more with you all later. Cheers until next leg. Mercer

May 14 it must be Cairo Whatever we think about the world we live in and the continuous conflicts mankind can’t get beyond; I am pretty sure one of the weapons is population. Guess what; Europe and America are losing fast! Trust me, I am not suggesting we get in this fight but we do need to figure out how we deal with it in the future. Cairo is in the desert with only the precious Nile for water. The official population is 20,000,000. However, our guide says they really don’t have a clue and it is likely much more. I believe her. Watching people in every form of transportation, all on the same roads (buses, cars, VW microbuses (with 15 people on board), donkey carts and camels, lots of motorcycles) is high entertainment and we had a great driver. He never got ruffled. The JW Marriot in Cairo is literally and oasis of green in the middle of a high end condo development in the middle of the desert. We eat all of our meals in hotels. Everyone goes to see the pyramids and Sphinx at Giza just 16 kilometers from downtown Cairo. The construction is truly amazing especially when you think the Egyptian pyramids were build between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC. It was barely the Iron Age. Our guide was very specific about times and what not to do. That is: don’t speak to anyone, don’t take anything from anyone and don’t give anything to anyone and be back at the meeting point no later than the specified time or she’d leave you. Pretty simple, right? We broke all the rules. I was always late because I kept getting the SECRET and very private tunnel tour. Let me tell you, going into a hole in the ground surrounded by litter with a great big Egyptian can get your heart pounding. But, I did get to see and touch newly discovered (2 months) hieroglyphs. The great big Egyptian did not kidnap me and actually spoke very good English and as was everyone we me,t very helpful and appreciative. Then off to the Egyptian Museum. It is worth the trip just to see the artifacts knowing most of the tombs had been robbed in ancient times. Many modern discoveries still are in the hands of the English and French who whisked their finds out of the country before the local authorities could stop it. Or maybe they were complicit. At any rate give the stuff back. These people are very proud of their history and it is about all they have. The Tut exhibit is astounding. Conceder he was young and one of the poorer kings when he died. What must the rest of the treasure be like! Off to Dubai now; more later. Mercer

May 12 Istanbul I have never been so close to 15,000,000 people. This is a hustle bussel place. We spent the day with a terrific guide named Murat, a Muslim. I learned a lot and continue to believe that people do not make war; politicians and religious leaders make war and they, in modern times, could not do it without a media that thrives on it and feeds the conflicts. Istanbul is an amazing place with lots of history. Structures like Il Sophia which was the largest building in the world for more than 1,000 years and built in the 6th century is just one. It is a magnificent building with beautiful mosaics depicting the Virgin, Christ and the disciples. These were all covered up with carpets and plaster when it was converted to a mosque. Now it is a museum where Muslim and Christian symbols are displayed side by side. Hopefully, a sign of things to come. The Blue Mosque just three minutes walk from Il Sophia is also an architectural and engineering wonder as is the Sultan’s palace next door. The Sultan who built this place had 1,300 cooks and more than 100 wives! Look these places up on the internet it will be worth your time. We are on our way to Cairo now flying at FL450 over the Med. I will be home Friday and can’t wait to see my bride, Mary. This is an unbelievable trip but nothing beats being home with your loved ones. More soon Mercer

Cairo for a Day from Bob

Wow, I always thought it was tough to drive in Rome or Paris. These cities are child's play compared to Cairo. We drove off this morning in the smog and dust and first went to the Pyramids. Spectacular as you would think. Then we went to the National Museum. Unfortunately, they do not allow cameras in there and there were about 75,000 militia around the place to make sure your cell phone didn't click either. Saw King Tut's things, although about 25% is on tour. Saw the royal mummies and they were neat too. After lunch, we went to the bazaar to be attacked by hoards of sellers of everything useless. Sorry, for those of you expecting me to return bearing gifts, I can't bring myself to buy junk. Total elapsed was 8 hours, over 2 and a half sitting in traffic in the van.

It was a wonderful day though with an excellent young woman guide and the only sane driver in Cairo, Thanks Be to Allah for him! We have about a 40 hour day tomorrow as Chris and I will leave the hotel at 6:30 AM to preflight and fuel the aircraft. We will get to Dubai and leave at midnight on the Delta flight and then add another 20 hours and we will be in Orlando! I haven't the heart to total it yet. Here are some pictures of the gang playing around the pyramids and just one shot of the traffic. If there are two lanes on the road, the cars make 3 to 5 lanes out of that. If it is a 4 lane road, I can't count the rows of cars! May boost up another edition tomorrow night waiting for the plane. Love to all at home, the greatest place on Earth! Bob

Bob's Istanbul

Sunday, May 11th, 2008 Arriving in Istanbul we were struck by the panorama of the city as we descended into it. It goes on forever. We later found that from a city of two to three million in the 1960’s, Istanbul has grown to a city of over 15 million today! The city is on two continents, Europe and Asia. We crossed a beautiful bridge built in the early ‘70s to take a picture of the European side of the city from the Asian side. It was my first time on Asian soil ever!

Monday, May 12, 2008 We spent the day with Murat, our native born guide, who gave us a fine tour of the highlights that we had time to see in this bustling Metropolis. Everywhere we looked, things looked good, growing and prosperous. We visited the famous Blue Mosque, had lunch at a neat little shop, watched Mercer bargain with the rug merchant and finished with a tour of the Topkapi Palace, which the Sultans inhabited until 1924. The outside of the Turkish buildings are relatively plain, but the insides were spectacular. We saw emeralds in the Sultan’s jewels the size of a woman’s fist and a diamond that exceeded 86t carats! They didn’t allow pictures in the jewel rooms. Pictures seen above include: Picture of European side of Istanbul from the Asian side, Marat and Jim on the Asian Side , Inside the Blue Mosque, I sell it to you for Dis Much! as Mercer buys a carpet and The Topkapi Palace of the Sultans. Tomorrow we head for Cairo. Hard to believe that this Friday will see us back in Orlando at the halfway point in our journey! Bob End of part three

Bob's Athens

May 9th. A great flight down with Jim at the controls took us over 6 countries including Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece. We saw the Acropolis as we descended into Athens, where we found excellent handling. Flight time was exactly 2 hours. The traffic in Athens may be the champion of all time. The motorcyclists are crazy and so are the car and bus drivers. Our van driver must have missed the shoulders of five pedestrians by less than 4 inches on many occasions as he sped down narrow crowded streets. We had a simple afternoon after finding the hotel to be very nice, but the route to it would never be discovered by an amateur. A winding circuitous route through narrow streets and suddenly there is the Marriott. Everyone was kind of tired that afternoon, so we went up to the bar/snack bar on the roof and had a 3pm lunch of Marriott burgers. That was enough food, so we decided to walk to the market and look around and all agreed to skip dinner. We ran into a Continental Airlines crew that was staying at the same hotel. The captain gave us directions to the “best bar in town” by telling us to walk until we saw the colored bottles on the wall, where we would find a bar that had been open in the same location for over 100 years. Find it we did, where once again Chris Hall demonstrated his worldly knowledge of all things beer and ordered an excellent local beer by name from memory!

We had a great conversation with the owner of the bar as well as an American and a Canadian couple that shared the small tables with us. As we have found everywhere, we ended up reciting the itinerary for our trip. As everywhere, people are astounded to think that they have met anyone as lucky as the five of us! Turned out there is also an excellent Cabernet wine made in Greece, I would rank it with any I have tried from anywhere. We walked around some more miles before taking cabs back to the hotel for the evening. The next morning proved once again to be glorious. We met Corso, our driver, for another adventure through the streets of Athens. We found our way to the Acropolis, where for $100 Euros, Elaina took us up for an hour and a few minutes to tour the ancient edifice. She was full of information, a bit hard to understand and completely devoid of any sense of humor, a tough combination when faced with our group. The Acropolis is truly a masterpiece of design and with the architect’s understanding of proportion and the effects of light on large objects really interesting. Two examples of this are the fact that the last two columns on each side are just a little bit smaller than the rest and a touch closer together. You can see this in some pictures up close, but never at a distance, where everything looks the same size. If they were the same size, the outside columns would appear larger from a distance than the others! Also, the steps are slightly convex as they run across the face of the edifice. If they weren’t convex, they would appear from a distance to be convex. Again, up close you can see it, far away- it looks perfectly proportioned. See the picturesat the top of this entry showing those things just discussed. The guide recommended a fine place for lunch which we all enjoyed. I think I need at this time, since we have heard some complaints from the peanut gallery, about the food being the center of what we write about. Ok, the wine and beer too! Well, I would like to state categorically that there has not been a single dessert eaten by a single member of the ATW group since leaving home. Back to the log…. We once again got back in the bus after lunch where I managed to strike the pointy side of the flat monitor in the bus with the top of my head. That pain caused me to wrench my back as I recoiled from the impact to my head. Since then, I’ve been slowed but not stopped. We retired to the rooftop bar and had dinner there that night, this time local specialties rather than hamburgers though. The Moussaka was excellent I might add, no dessert. We retired early as we had a 7AM crew bus to head out to the airport, once again with our friend in the Mercedes endangering every species moving near our highway! We were wheels in the well at 9AM for our one hour flight to Istanbul, flying over the Greek Islands of the Adriatic on a beautiful flight. Due to my back ailing me, Jim got a bonus round and once again had the leg and made an excellent landing in Istanbul! Not good enough to take the lead, mind you, but an excellent attempt. ! Istanbul. I will post Istanbul later today. Bob S.

May 10 Athens It is Ok, we are all alive. These people drive like maniacs. We have a very nice driver, I guess. I can only understand 20% of what he says but he laughs a lot and we all shake our heads up and down as we fain understanding. We have a big black Mercedes ,12 pax coach that our driver thinks is a Ferrari. As pedestrians jump for their lives and motorcyclist yell and glare, we make great progress through this city and its 5,000,000 people. They all have cars and they are all in them all the time. Our driver, his name I think is Corsa, 0r that may be only 20% of his name, took us to the Acropolis this morning where he arranged for a tour guide, Elaina. She spoke at light speed and I think she knew a lot about the Acropolis but my comprehension dropped to 10%. She was a no nonsense woman with a challenged since of humor. Not good with our group. The Acropolis is really amazing. These ancient architects were into the effect of light on structures and how it alters the perception of shape. Perspective and foreshortening were the tools of the trade. Their use of these concepts, resulted in a perfectly beautiful structure. You can’t see the full affect because of the scaffolding and cranes, but you can see enough to know that these people were brilliant at this technology 400-600BC years ago. Then a rip across town in our Mercedes chariot of fire to the National Museum. The building and the landscaping is a little apologetic but it is what is inside that counts. This collection of Greek antiquities counts a lot. The art, religions and life styles of ancient Greece is displayed here with English subtitles. We all probably marveled at these early cultures during our student years from our textbooks. See it in person before you die. It is worth it. We are getting hungry and we make the mistake of telling our driver so. He stepped up the pace a bit. I don’t think we hit anybody directly, but some guy carrying a sheet of plywood did get a little upset when we ran him off the road. I don’t think we hurt him but clearly we were not stopping. Lunch was wonderful. The Greeks know how to cook! I am coming back loaded with new culinary ideas. We are off to Istanbul Turkey in the morning. Our ride to the airport is with our driver, Corsa. God be with us. More later Mercer

Budapest to Athens

It was Jim's leg as we departed Budapest yesterday. I listened in on the 3rd headset as it took almost 20 minutes to load a very complicated flight plan into the Flight Managment System on board. We all enjoyed the controllers. One of them, in Macedonia, sounded like the epitome of a B-movie horror type in his voice. Kind of like Count Dracula on Sesame Street! The flight was smooth and beautiful with great visibilites. We passed over 7 countries in two hours of flying.

I upload the picture I took of downtown Budapest as we departed and a shot of the wall where so many Hungarians died in the unsuccessful uprising in 1956 against the Soviets. It is commemorated here by Brass balls that were put into the bullet holes in the wall of the building where they were shot, across from the Parliament building. The 1956 uprising was the first world event that I recall, I was 9 when it happened. Last is a shot of the Acropolis we took from the rooftop bar at our hotel last night. Everything continues to be just fabulous.

Thanks to all for the many postings and emails. We are having a lot of techical issues here, I can't get my email in a traditional fashion and Mercer can't seem to get his pictures uplinked today. I guess we can bear up under the pain :-). Have a great Saturday in the states people!

ATW Schedule

I have had several people ask about the schedule. I thought I had posted it, but here it is at any rate. Athens weather is beautiful this morning. Bob N565JP Around the World Trip 2008 LEG ONE Friday May 2nd begins Orlando (GMT-4) All departures are scheduled for 10:00 A.M Local Time May 02 Orlando to Bangor (fuel) to St. John’s (5.5 flying) 1 night GMT-2.5 May 03 St. John’s to Reykjavik (3.9 flight) 2 nights GMT+/-0 May 04 Iceland tour May 05 Reykjavik to Helsinki (3.7 flight)2 nights GMT+2 May 06 Helsinki tour May 07 Helsinki to Budapest (2.4 flight) 2 nights GMT+1 May 08 Budapest tour May 09 Budapest to Athens (1.8 flight) 2 nights GMT+2 May 10 Athens Tour May 11 Athens to Istanbul (1.0 ? flight) 2 nights GMT+2 May 12 Istanbul tour May 13 Istanbul to Cairo (1.7 flight) 2 nights GMT+2 May 14 Cairo tour May 15 Cairo to Dubai (3.5 hour??) GMT+4 leaving for U.S. the same day 11:35 PM departure from Dubai to ATL (15.5 flight) to MCO on Delta May 16 Home at MCO From Dubai 10AM Eastern Friday GMT-4 LEG TWO Sunday June 8th June 08 6:00 pm departure MCO Delta to ATL to Dubai overnight (14.6 flight) June 09 Arrive Dubai 7 PM 3 nights GMT+4 ??? Or Contingency day June 10 Dubai jet lag recovery and tour June 11 Dubai tour continues June 12 Dubai to New Delhi (3.2 flight( 2 nights GMT+5:30 June 13 India Tour June 14 New Delhi to Calcutta (fuel only) to Hanoi (4.3 flying) 3 nights?? GMT+7 June 15 Hanoi Tour June 16 Hanoi Tour continues or contingency catch up day June 17 Hanoi to Shanghai (2.9 flight) 2 nights GMT+8 June 18 Shanghai Tour June 19 Shanghai to Beijing (2.7 flight ????) GMT+8 June 20 Beijing June 21 Beijing to Seoul (1.4 flight) 2 nights GMT+9 June 22 Seoul June 23 Seoul to Sapporo (2.1 flight) 1 night GMT+9 June 24/23* Sapporo to Petropavlovsk to Nome to Anchorage (6.5 flying) GMT-9 June 24* Anchorage to Seattle GMT-7. 3.4 Flight (pick up a day crossing date line) June 25 Seattle to Wichita (fuel) to Orlando (5.4 flying) HOME! 5:00 PM Arrival Party at Showalter-limo home for Chris Hall! GMT-4 Total Flight Time 56.6 hour

Hello from Budapest. I am having technical problems here in the hotel and have had to get pretty darned creative to try to sneak some pictures out to you all. I include many shots of Helsinki, including a boat tour we took and then

some shots of the airport in Helsinki and of the boys poring over the maps before our flight to Budapest. Then a couple of shots on the Danube "ending" with a night shot out the window of my hotel room of the Royal Palace across the river last night. Ending is in quotes in that the pictures we upload end up in very different order than the way we uplinked them, so they come out kind of random. Kind of fits the mood. Budapest needs to be on anyone's list of places to make sure you get before you die. Some unbeleivable architecture, very nice people, wonderful food and chaotic traffic!

There will be more pictures of Budapest in a day or so, both from myself and from Mercer. In the morning (which is late tonight your time) it is Jim's leg to Athens. Everything still just working beautifully- the plane, the arrangements, the food.... the internet is a possible exception :-). More Later. Bob

Top: Earl and Jim at the amazing Lutheran Church of the Rock begging for forgivness for the excesses of the night before. (too much great food)

Next photo: Jim doing one more deal in an operating antique phone booth

Next Photo: The Icelandic glacier

Bottom photo: The Perla resturant on top of geothermal storage tanks. What do you think Jim S.? Great food one more time.

May 5 and 6 Iceland to Helsinki Finland We had a very uneventful leg from Reykjavik to Helsinki. We flew over and over the largest glacier in Europe which is in eastern Iceland, thus “Iceland”. It is quite dramatic and baron. They say it is shrinking 100 kilometers per year. Our on board experts say it has been doing that for thousands of years. It would be interesting to research, but no doubt about it, it is vast. Four hours and change later Bob at PIC and Chris in the right seat squeaked us onto the runway at Helsinki International in a raging crosswind. 30Kts. Bob is still racking up points in the landing department with extra points for difficulty. However, Chris and Jim also have rated perfect tens so far. They won’t let Earl or I give it a shot. Wonder why? 10.5’s might be the new bench mark! Helsinki is a very European city on the water. Lots of walking and bike riding. The old city has low rise buildings and wide boulevards with trees and parks. Everything is just beginning to turn green and people are planting annuals everywhere. The Finns are just coming out of hibernation and you can tell they are excited. The parks are filled with young people soaking up the sun. It is crystal clear today but if you are in the wind it will get your dentures rattling. Last night we stumbled into what we thought was a little waterside pub. It was, but just behind the very high end pub was a very high end restaurant “Ravintola Nokka”. It was world class, great food, extremely well presented by a wonderful staff. The high tech kitchen was separated from our table by floor to ceiling glass. We could watch it all! After we finished we all walked in to the kitchen and applauded the extremely talented Chef and his two assistants. Today Jim and I had bouillabaisse at a very small soup shop in a covered market. Operated like Sienfield’s Soup Nazi, but very friendly. Jim and I sat at a table after a short wait in line and were soon joined by two women. …………………………………………..Pause for affect. They were two very nice Finnish, married women, who worked in the area. The conversation was interesting and the bouillabaisse the best in my life. 6euros. Only water was offered to drink. These folks were soup artists! You would not ask for salt in this place if you were dying of an electrolyte imbalance. Jim and I were off to Finlandia the grand modern concert hall of Helsinki. Jim is heading the development of Orlando’s new “best in the world” performing arts center and is obviously interested in this iconic facility. We got a very interesting private tour with two young female guides in training and a chaperone. We took a boat tour and met some more great Finns. The Finnish are so friendly and helpful you can’t help but really like them and they like us Americans too! You can tell that this place really gets cold. Several huge icebreaking ships are now in port for the summer. These monsters are capable of cruising through 11 meters of ice and they do it regularly. We saw many beautiful homes on the water as well as stately, retired military bases; all very well kept and neat as a Fin. One of the homes had a Stationair on floats for transportation. More later, off to Budapest tomorrow. Jim is flying, the pressure is on.

More later

Mercer

Beautiful Day in Helsinki!

So far the comraderie, faciities, food and arrangments have been the best we could hope for. Cool- no- BRISK early this morning in Helsinki, but we had a great tour and got to get some great use out of the tour jackets Mercer provided. This thing never seems to put the pictures where you think it will when you post, so the bottom one is a picture of us taken from a spot that overlooks the central Lutheran Church you can see in the background.

The top picture is of the guys enjoying the local open air market with this morning's tour guide, Marja. Thanks to all of you that are sending comments, we enjoy every one.

Bob

May 4, 2008 A day in Iceland This is one of those places that really makes you wonder. Ice and snow, rain and wind. Lots of wind. These people are very hardy and handsome. The ones we have spoken to are very gracious and helpful. Most speak very good English. We have a great guide and a big touring van. Our guide Omar, a native Icelander owns a timeshare in Key Largo. Kinda wonder why he came back. Omar, 30, says he doesn’t know how long he can take the weather. His father lives in Italy and his mother somewhere in France else I think. Guess the weather got to them too. We were wondering why we saw so few people out this morning. Omar says that on the weekends the hard working Icelanders start partying at midnight and don’t stop until 6 AM. So he says the entire country is hung over and asleep. Driving around we saw glaciers, natural hot springs that bubble hot mud and water. Jim in an effort to see how hot was hot for us almost boiled himself as he came soooo close to falling in and giving Iceland there first Florida lobster. We saw huge waves crashing on the dramatic lava rock coast. And then we saw it. Jim says we have now done it all and we can now die. Nothing left. The “Blue Lagoon” is where everyone goes to get warm and bleach out all the alcohol from the night before. It is a “natural” ala Disney hot spring. Bright blue and steaming. This island prides itself on its being “Green”. Well it is but it cheats. The readily available geothermal steam provides heat and electricity with zero bad emissions except for a slight sulfur smell. 95% of homes and buildings are heated geothermally. Very cool, sorry hot. We should start importing steam from the nice people of Iceland. Unfortunately, I understand steam turns into water pretty quickly and would be a little tough to ship. We could freeze it prior to shipping! One of my favorite people figured out how to do this back in the 40’s. Gracie Allen Burns would freeze boiling water in ice cube trays so she would only have to thaw it out when she wanted a quick cup of hot tea. She was brilliant! We ought to thaw her out and let her run for president. PS: Food is great here. Off to Helsinki tomorrow!

May 2, 2008 ORL-BGR The Showalter team at Orlando Executive Airport gave us a wonderful send off. Banners and caulk art and lots of best wishes from the crowd. Even Kevin McNamara the ORL Airport Manager was on hand to wave us off. Bob was the first leg pilot and I (Mercer) was honored to be the co-pilot on the first leg from Orlando to Bangor. I would like to say Bob could not have done it without me but that would be a slight exaggeration. I basically kept the seat warm and watched Bob fly this spectacular Citation CJ3. Bob got a 10 on his perfect landing in Bangor setting the tone for the rest of the 16 landings. The competition will be tough! May 2, 2008 leg 2 BGR-CYYT With Chris as Pilot and Bob co-pilot the second leg went perfectly. On the approach to St. John’s Newfoundland we saw several icebergs, frozen lakes and snow. This is a very cold place. The glaciers of ice ages past gouged out the rock making the land look like tree bark ravaged by a bear’s claw. The final approach was perfectly shot to minimums 200 feet by the experts in the front office. We were greeted by very friendly FBO personnel in St. John’s who helped in every way possible. Damn, this place is cold! Only 32F but windy and damp. Slight problem on entry with no pre-notification of Canadian Customs. But the Customs agents were great and we served no jail time. They asked if we were carrying more than $10,000 cash. We said no, we were married. Off to the Fairmont Hotel for dinner and sleep. The best scallops ever in the restaurant at the Fairmont. The Scotch and local beer was also pretty good. Damn this place is cold and bleak! Chris thinks the locals don’t know that they can leave. Chris also allowed that if he lived here he would be looking for a rope and a shower rod. Bleak and cold but the people were very friendly. I have an iceberg outside my hotel window. Damn this place is cold! May 3, 2008 Leg 3 CYYT- Reykjavik Iceland Jim in command and Chris co-pilot. We launched pretty heavy (legal of course) and Jim lifts off beautifully. This airplane is amazing I do not think we used 2,500 feet of the 11,000 foot runway. Jim gracefully pulls up into the 200 foot overcast into a 40 knot head wind. Bob blames this head wind on Earl. Bob asked Earl to turn around; no help. We are supposed to have a nice tail wind. Not good when we have a long ride to Iceland. I think it is Jim’s fault; more justification for his global warming theory. I note that my son-in-law’s (Kelly Parker) parents in South just got a late 23” snow. Who knows? From Flight Level 450 so long for now.