Travel and arrival

15 June, and prior. PER-DXB-ORD-ATW

I flew out of Perth on June 12th on Emirates, to Dubai, arriving early the following morning. Exited the terminal to be forcibly reminded of the brutality of the summer humidity - like a brick wall!

I was staying with Charlie Hermon and it was good to catch upon with him. That was a chill day as I had had a Covid booster and and a flu shot the day before and I was feeling a bit shabby. Came good in the evening and we had dinner at the Marriott hotel with a bunch of ex EK pilots now doing contract simulator work with the old employer. Personally, very glad not to be climbing into a simulator at 2am or something similar!

Following evening caught up with my ballooning buddies Renee and Mike Howard for dinner at a steak house. Great to catch up with them again. Dinner and other things showed how expensive Dubai has become. And the building and development is back to the crazy days again.

On Thursday morning, June 15th, Charlie and I caught the Emirates flight to Chicago. A long one, 14 hours 25 minutes flying time. But pretty darn comfortable at the pointy end.

A long taxi in of 45 minutes, our gate was then occupied by a delayed departing aircraft and then a big and very slow immigration queue, all compounded, resulting in me missing my connection to Appleton (ATW). A four hour wait in the terminal for the next and only remaining flight, followed by a 35 minute flight time and I made it to Appleton at 10pm. Charlie was waiting for me in the terminal, as he had caught a United flight up, whereas I was travelling on American Airlines. Uber Otte (Juergen) was waiting in the pick up zone with his car and 30 minutes later we were ensconced in Winneconne. All in all, 24 hours “on the road”. Managed to get a pretty good nights sleep, considering the 9 hour time zone difference from Dubai, and the long day it had been.Read more