Honduras

I just came back from a quick trip down to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I of course have been there twice before on an Escort trip. This time I was down there to fetch a little girl named Raquel. She was born with congenital bilateral hip dislocation. After five botched operations in Honduras, she was accepted for an evaluation and treatment at Shriners Hospital in St. Louis.

I left home on the first flight to Miami, leaving at 6am (and we all know I am not a morning person). We were late arriving into Tegucigalpa, but the ground staff there is so wonderful, they had me already checked in for the return leg home, so I did not even have to complete Immigration formalities.

I am always a bit anxious when I have to take kids TO the states because they usually get upset when they have to leave their families. Raquel was so laid back and mellow, she was not visibly upset or anything.

I had told the crew on the way in what I was doing, so they really went out of their way to help us on the return leg home. We got to sit in First Class, which was nice instead of having to be cramped back in coach with the heathens. I brought a DVD player along and Raquel got to watch Dumbo and Lilo & Stitch (in Spanish) and I also brought her a little stuffed animal and a coloring book and crayons so I was well provisioned with things to keep her occupied.

We had a brief layover in Miami (where we had pizza). Normally the Miami airport looks like a refugee center, but that day it was actually quite calm. We both were pretty exhausted and slept most of the way on the flight to St. Louis.

Raquel's host family was waiting for us outside security. They don't speak Spanish and Raquel speaks no English so they will have a bit of a challenge when it comes to communicating. Luckily, Kelin, the little girl with scoliosis that I brought out last year lives with another host family down the street, so that will make Raquel's transition easier. It really speaks volumes about a family

that is willing to accept a child into their home for medical care.

St. Louis Finale

After a month of flying the same trip every weekend, it's finally come to an end. I spent my last long layover in STL with my Aunt Carol and my cousin (daughter of my other aunt) Geri Lynn. We went to a brand new casino that just opened, called Lumiere Place. We had a fantastic brunch buffet. The food was incredible and there was such variety. They had a great selection of sushi and even some seaweed salad, which was so tasty.

After we were done with brunch, we hit the casino. Both my aunt and my cousin love to gamble. My aunt gave me a $20 voucher she had gotten in the mail, for being a repeat customer I guess. I was able to get that as high as $95, but cashed out with $60 before it was all said and done.

It was nice to see them again and a great way to spend the layover.

The third day, as we were flying from LAX to Orlando, we had this Aussie on the plane named Marv. He was a famous Rugby player back in the 70's. He showed us his tattered trading card that he still carries in his wallet. He was coming to Florida to play golf at various courses, and also to go to as many strip joints as possible.

What does one do in St. Louis when the wind chill factor is 8 degrees?

Not a damn thing.

Zippers

I am sitting here at my little layover hotel in Norfolk, VA for a 30 hour layover. It might as well be Siberia, as the hotel is located in the middle of an industrial zone and the outside temperature is hovering in the low 30's. Thank goodness they have free Internet, so with my laptop, movies, and snacks, I am holed up for the duration. My goal is to stay in my pajamas all day.

I am also working with a broken zipper. I am trying to drink more water now, so after downing a liter of it yesterday on our first flight to Salt Lake City, I went into the lav to go potty. As I was zipping up my pants, my zipper broke. Luckily, the premium had a safety pin, so now I have to wear that all day tomorrow to keep myself from being indecent. I hope it doesn't set off the metal detector tomorrow morning.

Meet Me (and Flat Stanley) in St. Louis

I bid a 15 day line for the month of January. Now those of you who know Ron, know he doesn't like to work 15 days a month (prefer the 10-12 day lines) but this trip is just too good to pass up. Late sign in with one leg to STL, long layover, one leg to LAX, short layover, and two legs home via Orlando.

So what does one do for 20 hours in St. Louis? You go to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, AKA The Gateway Arch. Since I am still truckin' along with Flat Stanley, I took him along as well.

Side note: Stan has now logged over 20K miles of travel since I started taking him places.... don't forget to check out his website at http://my.flightmemory.com/flatstan to see where he is going.

I went to lunch at the St. Louis bread company on Sunday afternoon with Lucinda, one of my flying partners for the month. I was a little miffed because I wanted the Chicken Chipotle Panini, but I wanted them to hold the tomatoes, but the waitress explained that they don't add or take anything off the panini sandwiches. I told her I was allergic to tomatoes, which is a lie of course, but she did not seem to care one way or the other, so I got a big bowl of Black Bean soup instead.

It was pretty windy in St. Louis that day, so Lucinda declined to go to the Arch with me, so I walked her back to the hotel (it was downtown St. Louis after all, so you have to be careful) and then headed for the Arch.

The entire sidewalk leading up to it was covered in duck crap.

You enter the arch via an underground ramp. They have a nice museum that talks about the heroes of Westward expansion (yet strangely mentions nothing about the Indians we corralled onto Reservations and turned into alcoholics) like Lewis and Clark and Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase.

You then board these tiny pods that seat 6 people and ride up to the top of the Arch. It takes about 4 minutes to go up and 3 minutes to go down. It was rockin' pretty hard at the top because of the wind, and it was real warm so I only stayed up there for a few minutes. When it was time to go down, the employee directed me to Pod #4, but when I got there, this woman told me I could not ride with her and her family because she is claustrophobic and 4 people in the pod was too much. So I was then directed to Pod#5. On my way out of the monument I saw the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile.

Got back to the hotel around 5pm, which did not leave me much time to get ready for our pick up at 5:45pm. We ended up being delayed out of STL because the plane was late coming in, and then we were late arriving in LAX because of weather and then an EVA Air 777 broke down on the tarmac and everything got stuck. Not fun. The pick up area was packed, it looked like refugees were all fleeing the airport. We arrived so late, we had less than 8 hours behind the door, as required per the Union, so we ended up losing our trip to Orlando this morning, and just deadheaded home instead.

I ended up sitting next to this woman named Kathy who was quite pleasant. She and 5 other old ladies had gone to California to see the Rose Parade and then went to Vegas and Laughlin to gamble. She was also the owner of a new Concealed Hand Gun permit, which she showed me (the permit.... not the gun obviously).