Trump to Hanoi

AF1 leaves the US from wherever, Washington D.C., Florida, I don't know, then refuels at RAF base Mildenhall northeast of London and then to Hanoi.

W-h-a-a-a-a-a-t?

Voop.

I'm transported again backward through time to another place. Man, these flashbacks happen a lot. And I never even did acid. More than three times. Maybe I'm just remembering. But the visualizations are so real.

At the tiny AFB, a radar site at tippy top of a mountain in Pennsylvania and without an airstrip, there were only fourteen ranch-style houses without basements. I'm in the blue shared bedroom with my older brother. We had both a large Mercator map on the wall and small rudimentary globe.

I put my finger on Pennsylvania on the map and drew it eastward across the Atlantic, across Europe, Across Turkey and Asia to Japan. After all, we were going to the far east. I said to Barry, "We sure are going to fly over an awful lot of countries."

He said, "No. We're driving to California and flying westward across the Pacific. That's a lot shorter."

I thought, "Wow. My brother sure is smart. About everything."

And now Trump is flying the long way. Going north instead of south. Going east instead of west to eastern Asia.

So it appears. So people in comments elsewhere are certain. Why England? That's northward, the wrong direction by a long way. Hardly seems worth it.

But as exercise, consider London to nearby Arctic Ocean to the Bearing Sea to the Pacific Ocean to the China Sea to Hanoi. That would avoid flying over all those European countries, and Middle East, India, and Asia. Or sticking to oceans, over Europe to the Mediterranean, to the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, over India, Myanmar, Laos, to Vietnam.

I wonder which way they go. Where is Barry when I need him? He is smarter than me.

The route probably has to do with jet streams and certainly with flyover arrangements.

And maybe they're faking us out.