New Delhi, India - January 2007

The Lotus Temple in Delhi, India. Everyone must take off their shoes before entering the temple. Inside the large open dome is a very quiet place where many people are praying and meditating in silence. A nice reprieve from the hustle, bustle and noise of the city.

Welcome to Kinshasa!

I was happy to see some familiar faces and finally deliver the airplane after this marathon trip. I was even more happy when I finally arrived in Paris and was able to take a shower while waiting for my connecting flight to Los Angeles. While sipping some fine champagne while our Air France A340 taxied out, I asked Steve if landing with only fumes in the tanks and barely enough hydraulic fluid to stop, made him nervous. He said the only thing that caused him concern during the entire trip was "when the rat jumped out of the hole in the wall of the immigration office, ran around the room and then climbed a bookshelf and jumped into another hole in the ceiling". I had also watched the giant rodent, but had written off the whole scene to a hallucination... due to lack of sleep of course.

African Airplane Mechanic

Accra, Ghana December 23, 2006. Could not find any mechanics to resolve a problem with one of our hydraulic systems - the one that makes the landing gear go up and down! So had to take matters into my own hands in order to make it home in time for Christmas.
Many thanks to our ground handler and some rampers in Dakkar for their help in finding some skydrol (hydraulic fluid).
We flew this DC9 aircraft from Arizona to D. R. Congo with no overnight rest stop along the way. Steve and I were awake for somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 hours. We made our Air France flight out of Kinshasa by about 4 hours, otherwise we would have been stuck there until January 5th.