We checked into our hotel in Oklahoma City around 5PM last night. The airport receptionist booked us at the Embassy Suites, it was a good choice. We had our first steak dinner since leaving the USA, and it was one of the best. We told the restaurant staff that we were celebrating the almost last leg of our trip for Alzheimer’s and gave out maps and our itinerary to them. The staff was great.

Got back to our hotel around 9:00 and finally hit our beds after being up for 36 hours. Fell asleep in minutes. Up at 5:00 AM today to plan our final leg. Spoke with Steve Pellettiere for our final WX update. His forecast was perfect as usual. IFR WX for 90 min, then clear skies.

Zvi and I are grateful for all your support for us, for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, and for following our journey. We plan to put together a slide presentation of our trip and keep promoting donations for Alzheimer’s. If you have any questions about our trip you can contact me here.

We needed to get up today around 5:45 to be at the Hilo airport by 6:00 AM. The fuel truck was out of commission, which we knew, and we had made arrangements to fly to the Kona international airport on the western side of the island — only a 50 mile flight but had to climb to 11,000 feet or hit a mountain.

No full-time customs, that’s why we flew to Hilo. We refueled with a 19 hr endurance and are now at 7,000 ft. cruising around 125kts. with a 30 kt. headwind as usual. Planned for about 15 hrs. but looks like 17hrs. (2 hr. fuel reserve). Should arrive at Oakland 4:45AM. We do have a hotel reservation but may just refuel and continue on to Oklahoma City to sleep.

Zvi and I left Hilo on November 1, flew to Oakland and arrived 16 1/2 hrs. later at 4:00 AM, and then decided to continue to Oklahoma City. Rested at airport for 90 min. 2 Cappuccinos later at 5:30 AM, we departed for Oklahoma City and arrived 8 hours later.

I guess we flew 24 hours in 26 hours — a record for me and Zvi. We haven’t slept in two days. Decided to leave Oklahoma City and fly to Central Jersey Regional Airport tomorrow morning and get back to Central Jersey regional airport tomorrow between 3 and 4 PM.

We hope to see whoever might be free tomorrow to celebrate with us. Please don’t forget to support our cause to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. You can still donate through our website directly to the Alzheimer’s organization. Zvi & Ed

After breakfast, we explored the north east side of Pago Pago, about a 2 1/2 hr. drive, with beautiful views of the ocean. Arrived at airport at 3:00PM, cleared customs and immigration very quickly.

Filed the necessary info. to US customs and immigration in Hilo, filed our instrument flight plan to air traffic control, loaded all our waypoints to Hilo into our 2 GPS receivers, then got our clearance to depart to Hilo. Departed 3:40 PM.

We are carrying our max. amt. of fuel, which gives us about 20 hrs. in the air. Right now, we are level at 4,000 ft. and cruising at about 139 kts. or 160 mph. Estimating Hilo in about 15 hrs. Flight time could be over 16 hrs. unless we loose some of our headwind.

Still dealing with headwind and about another 14 1/2 hrs to go. Thank goodness for my personal physical trainer Ara who helped get me in shape for this journey. More info. after our arrival on Hilo.

Samoa is a US Territory with no voting rights. The US bought Samoa in 1900. They have a US national park here, which we are going to visit today.

Spent most of yesterday driving the mountains and enjoying the scenery — very similar to Hawaii. We plan to leave Samoa around 5 PM tonight. This will be our longest leg — somewhere around 15 hours.

Plan to spend two nights in Hilo, Hawaii and then fly to Oakland, California. Hope to be home on Saturday, November 5th early afternoon, if all goes well. Still sending the message and trying to get as many people involved with our journey for Alzheimer’s disease and making donations.

It was too late to re-fuel on our arrival at Fiji, so we refueled this AM before our departure to Pago Pago, Samoa. This is a reasonably short leg — about 4:45 enroute.

Yesterday we drove the entire south shore of Fiji from Nadi to Suva — about 7hrs. round trip. At dinner, we met 3 people from Edison, NJ. They flew to Sydney for the cricket matches, then visited New Zealand.

We found Fiji to be all green — lots of palm trees, etc. They are very friendly and like American tourism. No beautiful flowers like Hawaii, though.

We have 4 50 gal. drums of avgas at Pago Pago that I pre-shipped from New Zealand months ago.

We are now 8 min. from the 180 degree east. longitude, the international date line, and will gain 1 day. Just crossed date line — that means we land the day before we departed Fiji. Almost home.

My last trip to Pago Pago was in 1986.

We still are pushing hard for Alzheimer’s. Even if you have already donated, you still can donate a second time. Every dollar is important in finding the cure and in research for new meds to slow the progression of the disease.

Zvi and I both needed this stop to rest and recuperate. It’s really been a tough trip; it’s not the long hours you’re flying, it’s the hassle trying to get through customs and immigration and security at the airports which is quite annoying and time consuming.

We are still visiting our friends Norty and Margaret Gill. They have been fabulous hosts and can’t do enough for us; we are trying to entice them to come and visit us in the USA in the spring.

Spent yesterday at the Great Barrier Reef; it’s about a two hour boat ride (26 miles). Then had the opportunity to snorkel in two different areas and spend about 45 minutes on a glass bottom boat — it was an eight hour excursion (8AM to 4PM). We were told that the reefs are not in any danger now (as it was reported several years ago due to an increase in water temperature and starfish population).

We don’t have any major plans today except to get to the airport at around 5 PM to refuel. We plan to have about 240 gallons of fuel on board for a 12 1/2 hour flight, which gives us a reserve of at least three hours.

We will depart Australia at 5 AM tomorrow morning. We need to be at the airport by 4 AM to go through customs and immigration. The early departure should gets us to Fiji around 8 PM.

Because of the 10 day loss of time with the tire blowout on Sardinia, we eliminated Jordan, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Port Vila, Vanuatu (between Australia and Fiji) from our original itinerary. We decided not to change the website itinerary that has been created by our friend Charles Kush, as so far I believe he has changed it at least five or six times for us.

Our remaining  itinerary is Cairns, Australia > Nadi, Fiji > Pago Pago, American Samoa > Hilo, Hawaii > Oakland, California > Oklahoma City, Oklahoma > Manville, New Jersey. We cross the international date line between Fiji and Samoa and actually arrive the day before we depart, gaining the 24 hrs we lost flying eastbound. Still hope to be back in New Jersey November 6th.

Bird exploring Zvi’s head. Norty identify the bird as a magpie lark.

Playing with sea turtles

Beautiful Port Douglas

Today, Norty spent the whole day with us driving up to Port Douglas — about a 30 mile drive, with numerous stops along the way. Since they know I like avocado toast, they satisfied my gastronomical needs and made a successful breakfast of avocado toast for me.

We are enjoying the journey and still trying to promote donations to Alzheimer’s disease.

Zvi has not been to Australia before, so Norty suggested that we get to the Great Barrier Reef and try to do some snorkeling tomorrow. The outer reef is about 26 miles from shore. We of course agreed.

We cleared customs and immigration. Got back to our plane to wait out delay. Storm track slowed down, our routing was away from storm into clear WX. We departed at 5:45 before arrival of storm. Now flying 5:15 hrs, cruising around 140 kts or 160 mph. Only 7:45 to go. Smooth air, no clouds yet at 7,000 ft.

We have an instrument called a storm scope which depicts lightning associated with severe thunderstorms and turbulence and enables us to divert around severe WX. It has a range of 200 miles and gives us time to decide when to change our heading. The pictures we took last night show the storm scope in action and how storms move.

Should arrive Darwin around 8:45 AM — one of our longer legs. Not enjoyable, but necessary.

Arrived in Darwin in a little over 13 hours. Customs and immigration spent about five minutes with us.

Our great ground handling crew got us to our hotel where we are now relaxing after our marathon flight. Will do some touring today and depart early tomorrow for Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. We will be staying with some friends, Norty and Meg Gill, who have a home in Cairns. I met Norty in 1986 when he owned a motel called the Flying Horseshoe Motel. He is a pilot, so we have a lot in common. His wife Meg is charming. ZVI and I are both looking forward to spending time with the Gill’s.

Zvi and I are happy to see donations continuing for Alzheimer’s. We both appreciate the generous donations so many of our old friends and new friends are making and following us on our journey.

Arrived around 8:30 AM at Singapore. Customs and immigration took just a few minutes. Our friend and meteorologist Steve Pellettiere spoke to us several times last night with weather updates and graphics which was very helpful.

The rest of today was spent walking about an hour, roaming a nearby shopping mall dominated by restaurants and bakery items. It was hot and humid.

We became tourists and continued our evangelism regarding Alzheimer’s disease. Singapore is a very modern and clean city. Beautiful architecture for residential buildings.

Tomorrow we plan to be at the airport around 10 AM to refuel for a Sat. departure of 12 1/2 hours to Darwin, Australia.

Night view of a large Malaysian city

Arrived at our hotel about 10 AM and slept about two hours. Met a cousin of Steve Pellettieri, our meteorologist friend today. He has a home in Bangkok and he’s retired CEO of Turner News Asia division. Spent two hours with him this morning for breakfast. The rest of the day was devoted to getting the plane ready for the next leg — fueled it, checked gauges, checked tire pressure, checked oil.

Our plan to avoid weather issues is to leave in about 30 hours, which is 1 AM October 20. There’s a curfew on arrivals at Singapore, so we have to land after 7 AM local, since it’s about a 5 1/2 hour flight. 1 AM is departure time.

Bangkok is a fabulous place to visit — clean, safe, great food. Unfortunately, many people here are also suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. We are still trying to spread the word and get people excited enough to make donations.

Tomorrow we plan to do some sightseeing; we have a guide who will meet us around 10 AM and spend about five or six hours with us.