Our usual itinerary begins with an early morning road trip from Milwaukee to Chicago to make a 6 am flight from O’Hare to Miami. Each member has 2 70 lb. boxes of medical equipment to check in at the airport.
In Miami we board an American Airlines jet to Port-au-Prince International Airport. Flights are usually full between Miami and Port-au-Prince. In Port-au-Prince we are met by a representative from Hopital St. Croix who assists us through Haitian customs.
The process of getting through Haitian customs varies from year to year for us. It can range from having every box opened and inspected over a few hours to an express trip through the VIP room.
  
Once through customs we load up the boxes for the 30 kilometer trip from Port-au-Prince to Leogane, the home of Hopital St. Croix.
    
The 30 kilometer trip between Port-au-Prince and Leogane typically takes about 2 hours and can be a fairly hair-raising trip of close encounters with Haitian pedestrians, tap-taps (Haitian taxis), and other vehicles traveling narrow and severely pot-holed roads. When our surgical mission at Hopital St. Croix in Leogane is completed, we make the trip back to Port-au-Prince for one night of R & R before flying back to the states. The return trip can be yet another interesting event, particularly check-in at Port-au-Prince International.
  Occasionally multiple flights scheduled for departure a couple of hours apart end up sitting together on the tarmack waiting to depart due to the disorder of checking-in at Port-au-Prince International. Just another aspect of the great adventure in our travels to Haiti.
Eventually we board our plane for home. Here, our “Boss” John Brusky leads the way to our plane.
Sometimes we are lucky and make our Miami-Chicago connection. Other times we are not so lucky and get to spend a few hours in Miami’s airport.
Then it’s a short ride home for a long nap to recover!!