Back in the Air

Colorado Springs

Cheyenne Mountain NORAD

Valley Fair from the Air

Mall of America to the left of the runway

A barge moving up the river

Wow. I have been home for a couple of weeks. It was so nice. Now I am back in the Air. The job as a pilot is so different than most. We don't work 9-5 or have weekends off and we don't work 8 hour days. Our job takes a weeks worth of work and jams it into 3 days. Our days are usually 12 to 14 hours long and we can work 365 days a year. It is different to get used to and can be hard as inevitably everything breaks at home when you are on the road! The great thing is because we work such long days we do get more days off, which I love because it means more time at home. To make it work you have to be flexible and be able to adjust on the fly. I am still working on that.

The first set of pictures is Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was a cool trip as our pastor Dave Johnson from our church Open Door was on the plane. I talked with him for a few minutes as he was leaving; he is a man with an incredible depth and understanding of God's love, and at the same time, hilarious! Our church places all of the sermons on-line as a podcast, so I am able to download the sermons on to my computer and Ipod each week. As this Sunday I am sitting in New York, I can still feel near as I watch the sermon.

Colorado Springs is home to NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command. They watch over the world's airspace and in particular North America for any missiles, aircraft, or other attacks on our country. One of the amazing places within this command is a mountain called Cheyenne Mountain. NORAD central command was up until 2006 inside that mountain. It is 2400 feet under ground and a city that is mounted on giant springs in case of attack. Inside there are huge screens that monitor all of the airspace. They see all aircraft and satellites traveling around the world. I was extremely fortunate to visit the facility a few years ago and it is like something out of a James Bond movie. The Air Force Academy is also in Colorado Springs. They have one of the only Supersonic wind tunnels used for testing high speed aircraft in the world. It takes several hours to pump up the compressors to create wind speeds of over 1800 miles an hour.

The trip back to Minny we were able to fly over Valley Fair (our Amusement Park). It looks much smaller from the air (Where's Waldo?). We were about 10,000 feet flying over. Coming into Minneapolis we flew past a barge taking it's load up the river. Kind of a normal Mississippi river kind of thing but it still looks cool. Landing in Minneapolis it is hard to believe but the Mall of America is directly to the front left of the runway. I can't believe they allowed the airport to build a new runway so close, but it is kind of cool when you are landing. I think I saw a sale at Justice, but I flew past pretty quick. Well home tonight see ya soon.