An Amazing Three-Week Adventure

This series of posts is our travel log for a three-week adventure that took us from home to Milan, Italy by air and from there onto the Costa Fortuna cruise ship to begin a trans-Atlantic voyage that would take us to visit twelve ports of call in six countries on three continents, cross both tropics and the equator while sailing 6645 miles including seven full days at sea after which we flew home from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Wed Nov 16
We buttoned up at home and, due to snow predicted for Thursday morning, we headed to the Airport Comfort Inn in Salt Lake City right after going to the viewing for Sister Dorothy Johnson to spend the night. Dad had been her home teacher for years and I was her visiting teacher. Her son, Brent and his wife Kathy are also close friends as well as Dr. Brent being our dentist for a number of years.

Thu Nov 17
We got to the airport and boarded our flight for Dallas/Fort Worth. We were traveling with two other couples,

Drew and Lorraine Day

Bob and Carma Johnson

both from northern Utah. Drew is a former Brazilian Mission president. There we boarded our next flight for Madrid, Spain. After sitting on the loaded plane for over an hour waiting for mechanical problems to be fixed they announced we would be changing planes. The flight that was supposed to leave at 5:45PM wound up leaving at 9:00PM.

Fri Nov 18
Due to the late departure from Dallas we missed our connection in Madrid and were re booked on a flight at 4:00PM to Milan, Italy. What they didn't tell us was that the boarding passes they gave us were only vouchers which we learned at the gate. After a mad scramble the six of us finally got booked after we were told there were only two seats left on the plane. This delay caused our luggage not to get to Milan with us. We also missed our shuttle to the hotel. A kind young lady who spoke Portuguese at a watch kiosk let us use her cell phone to make phone calls (our phones don't work in Europe) and we finally arranged a taxi to the hotel for the six of us.

At the hotel we had a late dinner waiting for us and met Larry and Cheryl Stamps who are leading our group on this trip.

After being up for twenty-eight hours with little sleep on a cramped airplane on the nearly ten-hour hour flight from Dallas to Madrid and all else we had experienced we finally hit the sack.