The trip back home

Bright eyed and bushy tailed the group arrived at the lobby of the hotel for 4:15 AM.  We boarded a shuttle bus in two groups and made our way to the Managua airport.  It's a good thing we arrived when we did as there were many people that showed up after us and made the line quite long.  The airline must have noticed that we were a large group and had pre-printed our boarding passes so all that was left was checking the luggage.  Laureen was pulled aside to show them the medical kit from SP.  They went through all the medications in the bag and then allowed it to be checked.

There happened to be a number of merchants open in the Managua airport, so those who were inclined to shop did a little more.  We boarded the flight and the 4 hour trip to Houston seemed shorter as I think most of us had a little nap along the way.  Arrived in Houston on time and made our way to the courtesy room that they had for us. Here we had lunch, played some games and some people napped on the couches (I think there was even more shopping going on here as well).  The Edmonton group had the longest layover (6 hours), and were the last to leave.  Lorraine was the first one out - heading back to Yuma via LA.  Bill, our SP team lead was the next out , a few hours before the Edmonton crew.

The flight to Edmonton seemed long even though it was only about 5 hours.  Todd was dealing with some stomach issues so we were all watching to make sure he was OK.  Mentioning the word "rice" to him was almost enough to make him dash to the bathroom.

We arrived in Edmonton pretty close to the scheduled time (about 10:00 PM).  A number of flights had come in at the same time so we waited for what seemed like a long time for our luggage to appear on the carousel.  As far as I know, all of our luggage made it to Edmonton.  Outside of customs, as each person came out there was a loud cheer from those who were waiting to pick up loved ones and group members who had already come out.

Thank-you again for all your support for this team.

Curt
(for the Nic Team)