It doesn't actually take that long to fly from the west coast of the U.S. to the west coast of Africa. Significantly less time, it turns out, than flying from the west coast of the U.S. to the east coast of the U.S. under uncooperative weather conditions. The seven hours we lost in time change were Tuesday night.

I'm visiting my brother & sister-in-law and their family here in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. But since this is the only nine days that I have with them out of the next three years or so, you'll pardon me for not spending too much time at the computer.