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| Vacations Around The World |
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One of our first trips to Singapore set the stage for our
vacations. We were sitting in the lobby of the hotel when a Tour
Orient group arrived back at the hotel after an all day
sightseeing trip around Singapore. A lot of them were elderly people
that looked like they had been run through a fist fight. I have seen
pictures of the Marines leaving Guadalcanal that look better than
they did. That was when I decided that we would do our sightseeing
while we were young enough to enjoy it. I do not regret that decision
to this day. I have been so many places and done so much when young,
that I have no desire to see another cathedral, mosque, museum or
travel around the world. At the time we were traveling there were airlines the third world that still flew the old Dakota Plane like the one above. When we boarded one Cassandra was not sure that the thing would fly and was seeking a way to egress this monster from the past. She didn't really like the angle of the aisle on a tail dragger like this. Finally got her settled in, but that was not the end of her concerns about the air worthiness of this plane. When the pilot fired the shot gun shell to start the engine her rabbit blood almost took over; the little person in her head was running in circles and screaming and shouting. Then the port engine just outside her window started to shake, backfire and sputter before it finally started turning over relatively smooth for a DC 3. She started to settle down until the pilot fired the shot gun shell on the starboard engine. I could see that she thought I had brought her to end of her short life. I tried to tell her that this plane had the best safety record of any plane built. Yeah that didn't help much. Once in the air she settled down, guess she figured it was too late to worry about whether it would fly or not. Her concern shifted to whether it would land without any real loud noises and scattering of parts all over the runway. |