Day 1 - One Flight Taken; Two to Go

We left Boise, Idaho, at 1:04 PM today on United flight 3669, a CRJ 700 headed to Chicago. It was a smooth flight flight and we landed at O'Hare International Airport at 5:02 PM local time. Along the way Darlene was reading another novel by Susan Witting Albert, an author whose first book she picked up for 99 cents in Maui back in 2005.  I did some proofreading of my next novel set in Sydney, Australia, and then started writing on the next chapter.
I knew the fellow sitting across the aisle from me as we'd worked together at Hewlett-Packard, so we talked about travels (not about HP!), and he was very intrigued about the cruise we were headed on. He strongly suggested a "ride through the desert" while in Dubai. Hmmm, we'll see.
Sitting for 5 hours in an airport -- even in the United Club (the new name for the old Red Carpet Club) -- gets really old after a while. There's just so much you can do, you can read, and on Sunday afternoon, the TV's are blaring with the NFL games, just what Darlene wants to hear -- NOT!
Boarding begins in 5 minutes for our overnight flight to Munich, and then a short 2-hour flight to Barcelona. Time to power down the laptop, kill the data manager on the cell phone so I don't get internet roaming charges on it, and make sure I haven't left anything on the floor. Ahhh -- the journey has finally begun.

Friday Night - 36 hours to go!

Thirty-six hours until we get on our first plane to head to Barcelona. Am I ready? Ha!!! I guess I'll pack Saturday morning. Oh, we did hear from our friends John and Sharon who said it's raining in Barcelona. Thanks, for the heads up. We're packing a couple of umbrellas.
I know we'll find that we've forgotten something once we get to Barcelona; whether it's something we want for the 3 days there, the cruise, or later. That's all part of what I call part of being flexible, or that you just might end up with a souvenir from your trip. Okay, Darlene probably will not have forgotten anything, so I'll let you know what I buy when I realize "whoops, I need that."
I'm going to go see if I can start packing now.

Pictorial View of Itinerary

Attached is a photo of map with stick pins of various locations:

• White dot on left is Barcelona, our starting location; white dot on right is Dubai, our ending location
• Black dots are the Suez Canal, a 1AM - 6PM venture
• Red dots are stopping points along the way

1. Civitavecchia, Italy
2. Messina, Sicily
3. Aqaba, Jordan
4. Eilat, Israel (same red dot as Jordan, they're only 3 miles apart)
5. Muscat, Oman
6. Abu Dhabi, UAE

 Stuart & Darlene

27 Days: Boise - Barcelona - Dubai - then home

In less than an one week, we will be one another journey, not our longest one, but certainly a most exciting one.  We will be flying from Boise to Barcelona (no, it's not non-stop), where we'll spend a few days enjoying the marvelous Catalunya culture; getting on a cruise ship for an 18-day cruise, and then spending 3 days in Dubai before heading back home to Boise, Idaho. Along the way, I'll be posting updates with words, pictures, and video. If you have any questions, or other input, please let me know.

Here's the schedule:
30 Oct - fly from Boise to Chicago; then Chicago to Munich overnight
31 Oct - fly  from Munich to Barcelona
31 Oct - 03 Nov - we're in Barcelona, Spain
03 Nov - board Royal Caribbean's "Brilliance of the Seas" in the afternoon
04 Nov - cruising
05 Nov - Civitavecchia, Italy - (land tour)
06 Nov - Messina, Sicily - (land tour)
07 Nov - cruising
08 Nov - cruising
09 Nov - passage through the Suez Canal
10 Nov - Aqaba Jordan (land tour)
11 Nov - Aqaba Jordan (land tour)
12 Nov - Eilat, Israel (land tour)
13 Nov - cruising
14Nov - cruising
15 Nov - cruising
16 Nov - cruising
17 Nov - cruising
18 Nov - Muscat, Oman (land tour)
19 Nov - cruising
20 Nov - Abu Dhabi, UAE (land tour)
21 Nov - Dubai, UAE (disembark)
22 Nov - Dubai, UAE
23 Nov - Dubai, UAE
24 Nov - fly from Dubai to London Heathrow
24 Nov - fly from London Heathrow to New York JFK
25 Nov - fly from Newark to Chicago/Boise

Travels are Beginning Again

I've been traveling a lot in the past two years (over 250,000 flights miles), but most of the travels have been to earn my Million Mile Flier status on United Airlines, which I got on September 15th of this year. Now we can sit back (hopefully in First Class) and travel more for fun.

We do leave in 9 days for a 27-day journey that begins in Barcelona, Spain, then on a ship through the Suez Canal, and finally ending up in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I will be posting on a regular ( daily?) basis with some pictures and video along the way. What will make this trip even more fun is that two friends from our 4 weeks through Europe in 2009 are also going along (they are the ones who told us about it). So when you hear the names John and Sharon, they are the ones!

Feel free to post a comment or a question, and I'll do my best to give you an answer.