Questions from the folks at "Day at the Park" retirement day camp in Rochester, NY:
How are you enjoying your trip?
Do you get depressed?  Are you happy?
Have you had good weather?
Do you have any regrets?

Email response from Dan:
Thank you so much for the Email. It's always great to hear back from folks such as yourself.

As for your questions, I'll try my best to reply to them:

We are enjoying our trip temendously.  Just the thought of meeting new people, visiting new cultures and the adentures hidden within each unimaginable day have made this trip so exciting, and we hope we can share that with you.

As for getting depressed, there are times when we wish things could be a bit better, but always return to the realization that every harship accounts for one more memorable experience and we try to meet each day with new faces. We have been in the best of moods for such a long time now, and as we reach the equator later this week, we are looking forward to the tropical climates and palm trees associated with the lower lattitudes.

Discussing the weather, it has been our great good fortune to fly in some of the best weather from the frozen tundra in Canada to the monsoons of India.

The worst we've experienced has been in the high Italian Mountains, and for a brief instance crossing the Bay of Bengal. While weather prediction and reporting around the world is not as advanced as the United States, we are forced to rely on expired Satellite Imagery and forecast our own assumptions and predictions accordingly.  The years of flying combined by the crew has proven great and together with the aircraft we are prepared for the most extreme weather should it arise.

And our favourite question.  The regrets. Understanding the nature of the project it's hard to ascertain any regrets so far.  While we wish we had longer to stay at each spot, we look forward to each new destination with the same amount of energy.  As the world is so large and so varied to sample, the hardest thing to grasp has been the fact that there is so much out there and it all can not be seen within the span of a lifetime, and to travel the world in only three months is that much more difficult.  Even so, our spirits are high and Robert Frost explains our thoughts best:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
and many miles before I sleep
and many miles before I sleep-

From Thailand,
All the Best-

Dan Dominguez


Email response from Chris:
It is good to hear from you.  We have many kids following the projects, but it is so exciting to hear that you have taken an interest to. Yes sometimes the road get hard and I begin to wonder how or why I ever decided to take on the project.  Yesterday we were stuck in India and it didn't look like we would be able to leave any time soon.  We were stuck at the airport and it was absolutely miserable.  It is so dirty and nobody knows what is going on but they all have guns and demand this pieces of paper and stamps that somebody else was suppose to have given us.  It is ridiculus.  We decided we wanted to leave so bad that we were going to push the absolute limits of the plane and fly around 13 hours on an indirect path through storms to get to Thailand.  At the last minute we were cleared on a direct route that was only 8 hours and now we are in paradise. Every day brings a new challange and new excitement.  The way I see it if it doesn't kill me it makes me
stronger.  The weather has been good up until now.  We had a little weather on the way down and we saw rain for the first time today.

I try to live life with no regrets it is too short.