We were up at 2:30am to get ready for our journey to Bonaire. Joshua drove us to the airport. We left our house at 3:45 to allow extra time because of lake effect snow falling in South Bend. Roads were mostly snow packed as we got closer to South Bend. Arrived about 4:45 at the airport, checked one bag, and proceeded to the TSA security check. Both of us had ‘TSA Pre’ check written on our boarding passes (which has happened for all our trips the past couple years). This means we don’t have to take our shoes off or go through the scanner. We still go through the metal detector and our baggage goes through the Xray. We were not really surprised when every one of our carry-ons were searched by hand. I had moved some heavy items our of our large checked bag to keep it under 50 pounds, so the small steel box to be used for an emergency switch in my bag and the cake mixes in Virginia’s bag were the ‘suspicious’ items!

Our flight was to leave at 6:00 and the status board showed it leaving at 5:55am. About 5:50 an announcement was made that the aircraft was too cold inside (it had sat out all night in the cold and snow) and needed to be warmed up. About 6:10 we boarded a plane that was still freezing cold inside. After everyone was on board, the pilot said we would be backing away from the gate for a 20 minute de-icing. That was not a surprise because there were big icicles on the windows because melting snow on top of the plane had refrozen on the windows! About 40 minutes later, after the de-icing vehicle had made at least two passes around the aircraft, we finally were on our way–an hour after the scheduled departure time.

With only 90 minute layover in Atlanta, it was fortunate that the flight took 20 minutes less than scheduled, we landed and proceeded without delay to the gate. We had to change terminals, but Atlanta’s shuttle train makes that quick. We arrived at the gate for the Bonaire flight with plenty of time to spare.

Walking to the Terminal

Map of Various TWR locations

The flight to Bonaire was scheduled to take 4 hours but it only took 3-1/2 hours. Bonaire’s airport consists of one runway, which is also the taxiway to or from the terminal. We got through immigration fairly quickly as ours was the only flight at the terminal, plus our flight was not very full. There was no one at customs, so that was a ‘walk through’.

Vera Rienstra met us at the airport. We will be staying in a bedroom/kitchenette with bath, which is part of the Rienstra house. The duplex that we stayed induring our last trip will be full this coming week. We should be moving into the duplex in about 10 days.

2001 Hyundai Atos 1.1 liter

We have the use of a 2001 Hyundai Atos 1.1 for part (maybe all) of the time we are here. It will have to be used to take Marco (Vera’s husband) to work, so if Virginia wants to use it she will have to drive us to work (about seven miles through town from where we are staying to the transmitter site).

When we opened our checked bag we discovered that it had also been opened by TSA in South Bend.  Again we were not surprised, as we were carrying some special heavy bars for bending large electric cable. These bars would have just fit into my carry-on, but I had second thoughts that TSA may consider them potential weapons and take them away if packed into my carry-on!

The weather here is cooler (high of 85F) than last time and there are strong breezes.  We can sit in our room and not feel like we are sweating. We slept a little warm, but comfortably, our first night without using the air conditioner.