Bill Weber
Latest Report as this goes to Tomah Journal
Monday, Jan. 5, 1998,
7:15 a.m. CST (1:15 p.m. GMT) --
Describing Steve Fossett's Solo Spirit flight as
"significant," Mission Director Alan Blount announced
that the team now believes Fossett landed his balloon
about 11:27 a.m. GMT in a rural area about 53 miles
north-northwest of Krasnodar, Russia.
but even as he ends his attempt at an around the world non-stop
flight his WEB page :
http://tacoma.wustl.edu/ still contains
a
lot of interesting information.
Last week I talked about using Internet & WEB to plan
one's vacation. I used our anticipated trip to Italy to give you
an idea of what can be done.
Overseas travel means getting a passport if you do not have
one. For a lot of information on obtaining or renewing ones
passport the US State Department has a WEB site at:
http://travel.state.gov/passport_services.html
Applications are also availalble at your local court house or post
offices.
Don't forget to contact the airline which you will by flying on
as soon as you know your flight schedule. Early reservations often
give you a choose of window seats if you wish. We will be flying
American Airlines and made our reservations on Jan 4th
via phone and using their WEB site
http://www.americanair.com/
where departure and arrival times are listed from LaCrosse, WI
to Chicago and then Milan Italy and back to LaCrosse.
A list of all major American airlines can be found at:
http://www.iis.com.br/~honorio/northa.htm
Most WEB pages for these airlines give you oodles of information
about their departure times, fares, special promotions etc.
In order to know what the exchange rate for an American dollar
is in the country you plan on visiting The following sites have that information:
The US Federal Reserve board at:
http://www.ny.frb.org/
For example the exchange rate for one American dollar on Jan 2nd,
was 1772 Italian Lira.
IFBA at Gottingen Germany lists the exchange rate for 200
countries.
http://www.wiso.gwdg.de/ifbg/currency.html
Soo! you say, I am not interested in overseas travel at this time.
What is available here in the United States? Okay, here are a few pointers
if you are planning a trip in the United States. Almost every state has
their own WEB page and one of the quickest ways to get there is to go to
the World Travel site
http://city.net/regions/ Here one
can click on
any region in the world and then keep on clicking on maps, on state or province
and on the city (only major cities listed). Once you find your
area of interest then you have a full list of what is available in
that particular area, such as lodging, recreation, places to eat, etc.
If you are thinking of flying, click on the list of Airline WEB
pages listed above.
Then again maybe this is the year you want to take a trip on the Amtrack
train. My wife, Thema, and I did this a few years back and had
a great time The service and facilities were very good. Go to their WEB
page http://www.amtrak.com/ for more
information and special promotions
Going by bus, Greyhound has a WEB page at http://www.greyhound.com
If you are traveling by car, the Wisconsin American Automobile
Association at http://www.aaawisc.com/
can provide you with
information and trip tickets,
Because many URL addresses are so long the best thing to do is
to go to my WEB page
http://www.geocities.com/~billweber
Click on Links button and then on the highlighted subject you are
interested in.
News Flash!! Home WEB page for NASA's "Lunar Prospector"
Launched Tuesday morning Jan 6th '98 is at:
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/
Lots of Info.
Next issue "Having Your Own WEB Site"