Here is a sunset picture from 10000 feet.
We got away on Friday from Strother Field around 5:00 and basically flew South to Brownsville, Texas. We flew just West of Dallas-Fort Worth and our rate of speed was approximately 157 mph.
At 10:00 we arrived in Brownsville and found our motel (which we were blessed to even find a room because it was the beginning of Spring Break) and went to eat at El Poco Loco. We got a family chicken dinner with two sides. One of the sides was a garden salad, which had some green jalopeno peppers. Keith ate one, which was warm, but not to hot so Gordon tried one which was hotter and he just ate one bite. Keith ate one more, which wasn't hot at all, so Steve tried one, which wasn't hot, so Keith told him to try the rest of the one that Gordon tried. He plopped the whole thing in his mouth and chomped down and we thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head, he broke out in a sweat and drank alot water. He did survive.
We went to the motel and had a short night sleep, getting up at 5:30. We took off from Brownsville at 9:00 and basically followed the coastline down through Mexico. We hadn't reached our flying altitude yet at 9:15 when we got into a thunderstorm, we had a pretty rough ride for 10 to 15 minutes, but Gordon concentrated on the task at hand and with Gods help we made it through.
We arrived at Veracruz around 12:30 to fuel up and take a welcomed break. We had to go through Customs, Emigration, and see the Commandant. We left there and flew East passing over Belize and then SE to La Ceiba. Before reaching Belize we went up to 15000 ft where we had to have oxygen, which was a different experience.
We arrived in La Ceiba at 5:30 where we met up with our missionary Mike Gullikson. Gordon received a special blessing, because one his dear friends Sandy Helmer, from Florida, whose husband was a pilot and flew one of the first flights into Honduras after Hurricane Mitch, bringing in water and supplies, was there to meet him.
We are staying at the Hotel Canadien, which is operated by a couple originally from Canada. We are right on the ocean, which is interesting for Keith, because this is the first time he has ever been on the ocean beach.
Gordon Blackie, Keith Call, Brent Hogue, Steve Ruggles, (ALL)
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Steve and Veva Ruggles * 1403 E 12th Avenue * Winfield, KS 67156
This page was last updated on 9/4/2019