May 16, 2006: The Journey Begins

The journey has begun. I am writing from the plane as we are on to South Africa from 39,030 feet up in the air according to the monitor in the air in my seat in front of me. We have traveled 2,230 miles thus far from our connecting flight in Atlanta and have 1,792 miles remaining until we reach Sal Island off the coast of Easter Africa where we will refuel and then fly on to Johannesburg. We flew out of San Diego late last night leaving around 10:50 p.m. on a red eye to Atlanta this morning. After we landed in Atlanta, we found our gate and sprawled out and slept on the floor as we were the only ones there. After a few hours of watching the same news headlines on CNN over and over and over again, a few of us found breakfast comprising of bacon (lots of it :-), freshly scrambled eggs, and cheese all on a plain bagel as a sandwich with cranberry juice to go along with it. It was great. Not too long after that we boarded the huge plane we're on now where I'm at, sitting spotlighted from the light about me amongst a cabin full of darkness slightly illuminated by TV monitors and the no smoking signs above, in seat F of row 55 on my way to South Africa!