I’ve been tracking the Dallas to Qatar leg of our flight on Flight Aware for the past week. Depending on the day to day situation in the Mideast, the flight path either flies down the middle of Europe, then over Turkey and Iraq or when the situation is more precarious, the flight path crosses Spain, the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Crossing my fingers that Monday through Wednesday will not see missiles flying. Actually ANY day for that matter.
According to the seat assignments chart there won’t be many passengers on our flight Monday or the next leg from Qatar to Singapore. I think almost every person will be able to have a row of 3 seats to themselves. Today, I changed our seats so that no one will be in front, behind, or in the 3 seat row next to us. That way, as soon as we are finished with the dinner meal, Steve can grab that middle aisle bank of seats and try to sleep. And I’m carrying lounge type pants and shirt in my carryon to be more comfortable to sleep. We have 2 full days and 2 partial days in Singapore and want to be awake during the day if possible. For added insurance, we stopped in at a doctor next door to a pharmacy and obtained a prescription for a sleep aid that we will take on the 14 hour leg.
Initially we were going to drive to Colorado to leave our dog with my mother but then our neighbor agreed to watch her. She sure saved us a headache as it’s not a good time to drive north. You may know there is violence in the state of Sinaloa due to a fight for power within the cartel. This has had an effect on road travel in the area. For several days, semi trucks and passenger busses were being commandeered and set on fire in order to block the highway between here and going north and on the highway to Durango. Additional National Guards troops were brought into the state in the past week and the roads are open for now. It’s had a major impact on tourism here in Mazatlan as hotel reservations are down 40%, restaurants and night clubs are almost empty at night, and the city is much quieter than normal as far as noise. Many US and Canadian citizens drive south beginning around now to spend the winter in Mexico. And some are in a quandary as to whether to come down or not. It’s a tough decision for those that have already rented apartments for the winter. For the most part there is no violence in Mazatlan other than the typical couple of murders a day………same as that most exceptional peace loving and democracy promoting country to the north of Mexico.
Another thing to watch for are hurricanes. It has been unusually quiet this year and nothing is forming south of us at the moment so we are in the clear. I like the website windy.com because you can see all the weather patterns everywhere in the world for the present and several days into the future. This is about the only time of year to get rain and it’s one reason I like to be here in the summer. Everything greens up and the storm clouds are beautiful.
I was going to try and take a vacation from my electronics for the next month but changed my mind and bought an internet plan for the cruise. There’s too much going on to be out of the loop. Plus, my daughter is going on a short business trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan when we are in the middle of the Pacific and her company booked her a flight to arrive in Detroit at midnight where she will then have to take a long cab. I will be checking my phone constantly until I hear she is safe in her hotel. Cost for 25 days internet is $531. Another example why kids are expensive.
Wanderlets 