Well, she's gone.

[Chas]

My daughter left this morning on a plane to Managua, Nicaragua. She'll be there for about 8-10 days.


I miss her already.

[East_TX_Spa]

Is she on vacation or on a clandestine assignment for an unnamed shadow agency?

Terminator

[Chas]

No, she's not with the 'three-letter agency' anymore. They found she was far too trusting, honest and upfront so they had to let her go.

So on this trip, she's helping a Christian outreach to children.  Working with an international mission.

I can't even remember the name of the city, but after the flight into Managua they board a bus for 7 or 8 hours, and when the road ends, they board boats for a trip up-river.

They brought mosquito netting and Deet, but I have a feeling that we didn't waste our money on the Malaria pills...

I offered to buy her a big gun, but she was afraid her one allowed bag would be overweight and she would have to leave some clothes home, so she's not even packin!

[East_TX_Spa]

I figured she was on a mercy mission of some type.  What a considerate and caring young lady, as well as very brave, to say the least.  I hope her mission is a success!

Anyway, she should have no trouble buying an AK-47 on any sidewalk shop, so I wouldn't worry about her.

Chris O

[Chas]

 

[wmccall]

Did you get a "I made it" or is she to remote and out of touch?

[Chas]

We got a call on Thursday that the group made it to Managua. Then another call came in yesterday - Monday the 10th - to say that all were doing fine. No one was sick, everyone was in good spirits, not sleeping much, very humid, but doing fine.

Oh, and one other thing - the trip up the river was two hours in the drenching rain. Hmm. In a rain forest. Imagine.

Then another 40 mintue boat trip to "Bluefields," also in the drenching rain.

So far so good!

[TD]

Wow. I hope my daughter (when she is older, as she is only , is willing to be so helpful to those less fortunate then she is.  I hope everything goes exceedingly well for your daughter and that she returns safely and successfully from her mission.  I would be frantic, I'm afraid, and would probably have only let her go if I went with her, but that's me, the very over-protective, ever suspicious Dad. Kudos to you and your philanthropist offspring.

Edited to explain that the smiley above should have been the number "eight", as she is eight years old. I dunno what happened, going out to the tub to mull this over with my Shiner.

[Chas]

Well, she got back to Managua. The hotel had free Internet, and we got a couple of emails: one to me and one to my wife. We had loaded up her inbox with several notes of encouragement and general love just in case.

One of the leaders had her appendix blow up on her - she gets to stay in the hospital in Managua for another couple of weeks! Pray against infection, if you don't mind.

The two-sentence notes told us that our 'kid' is very tired, and misses us. She was supposed to ride home in the van after her midnight arrival on Wednesday, but she asked us to come to the airport. How could we say no? We miss her too.

[Brookenstein]

Glad to hear she is safe and had a good trip.  Sorry to hear about the person with the appendix.  I had mine out during the 1994 highschool state basketball championships in a tiny town in Eastern Oregon and was scared to death (not of the surgery... but the location and the dr's who did it) I can't imagine going through that in another country.

I wish everyone a safe return home.

[Chas]

HOLY COW!!

LAX is shut down. Can you imagine how many people this will inconvenience?

My daughter is in the air - they left El Salvador a half-hour ago, and are en-route I would hope.

But a power outage in Palmdale, where "LA Center" radar ATC is located, had all Southern Cal airports shut down.

Lets see: if I go rent a really big Generator, it's a two-hour drive to Palmdale from here, I might get her home tonight after all.

[Brookenstein]

OMG Chas!  We just got home from swim lessons so I hadn't heard that LAX is closed.  Wow... you are in for some long night.

[Brewman]

Brooke, did your power hungry ways cause the power grid in Southern California to collapse?

[Chas]

Brooke, did your power hungry ways cause the power grid in Southern California to collapse?

Well, they had the Radar up and running again in 90 minutes, but the news agencies just kept running the story over and over so it seemed like a sure thing she was going to have problems.

As it was, her flight was about 15 minutes ahead of schedule - and there was only about a 15 minute delay by the time midnight rolled around, so she actually touched down right on time.

Customs was very slow because they were still juggling to get things back to normal, so the plane sat on the taxiway a long time as other planes emptied out ahead of them.

The funny thing is that most of the kids in our group came home almost empty-handed, having dontated their cots, clothes and even backpacks to the missionaries and kids, so once they finally got the plane to the gate, and then got the kids to the inspectors, it went fast.

And for once, the traffic on the 405 was light to moderate. I think if we had waited one more hour we might have seen the early-morning traffic starting to pick up!

We brought her favorite pillow and a soft blanket, thinking she would sleep on the way home, but we heard a play-by-play in VERY animated terms as we drove the hour and a half home. She's ready to go again next year.

[tmknies1]

Glad she is home safe Chas. I am sure you all slept better last night