Day 1 (January 27, 2017): On our way!

Welcome to my blog about our trip to Nicaragua!  This is a trip that we are taking with the Board of Compassion Canada, which I've been a part of since 2010.  Every three years, as part of our oversight of the organization, we travel to one of the 26 "field countries" in which we support children, and visit the national Compassion office there, as well as project sites encompassing all the programs we support. If you'd like to know more about Compassion Canada, click here: https://www.compassion.ca/about/

Ten people sit on the Board, in addition to our President / CEO, Barry Slauenwhite.  Barry and his wife went to Nicaragua today, while the rest of the Board will travel there tomorrow.  Pam and I left this afternoon and went as far as Houston, via Toronto.  Tomorrow morning, we will complete the last leg of our trip, from Houston to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.

I was at the office today at 6:30am and worked until just after 1pm.  It's a peak period in my job, so there was a lot to get done before I headed out.  Our friends, Lorna and Jim, were in the driveway just before 2pm to take us to Halifax International.  Check-in and security were a breeze, and we ducked into the Maple Leaf Lounge to grab a quite bite of lunch.  Our Air Canada flight to Toronto actually left a bit early.  Once a day, Air Canada flies a Boeing 767-300 on the route -- my favourite aircraft due to its comfy 2-3-2 seating configuration, and that was the plane we enjoyed all the way to Toronto.

[ Air Canada Boeing 767-300 (top of photo) flight to Toronto.  Such a comfortable plane! ]

Despite arriving in Toronto at the 5pm airport rush hour on a Friday, getting through US Pre-Clearance was a breeze.  Once in the US Departures area, we settled into another Maple Leaf Lounge to wait out the four-hour stopover.

[ Pearson Airport has a new and very tech piece of modern art:  this four-panel, curved flight schedule board is truly a work of high-tech art! ]

[ The busy rush hour tarmac at Canada's busiest airport is a sea of Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge fins.  I never tire of the tarmac action of Pearson! ]

The Air Canada flight to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport was a Brazilian-made Embraer 175 in 2-2 configuration.  We snuggled into the last row, had a sandwich, watched a movie and napped.  We landed in Houston on-time at 11:30pm, quickly got our bags and a shuttle to a Fairfield Inn close to the airport.  By 12:30am (2:30am Halifax time), we were in our hotel room - up for 21 hours!.

It's going to be a short sleep, as we need to be up and out by 6:30am.  So that's a wrap on this dull first entry to the Nicaragua blog!  Tomorrow, the real meat and potatoes of the trip begins.  Y'all have a good rest now, y'hear?  Good night from the Lone Star State.

[ Welcome to Texas! ]