Beauty and the Beast

Taking off out of Portland Oregon there are some absolutely beautiful sights. This picture is a distant picture of Mt Hood. It is 11,235 feet tall. Notice the clouds below the peak. It is cool because you can see the top sticking out above the clouds.

This is what Mt Hood looks like as we fly by. We are flying right next to the giant mountain. Very cool. It has snow on it all year around and in some places they ski in the summer.

This picture is of Mt St Helens in the front and Mt Rainier in the back. Mt Rainier is over 14,000 feet tall and Mt. St Helens is the volcano that blew up several years ago. It is only a little over 8,000 feet tall now. The entire top half of the mountain blew off and we saw ashes all the way to Cincinnati when we lived there.

Me tired of fighting the weather. This trip has been full of blizzards, bumps and thunderstorm. It is hard to see out the window in those conditions. Ready for sun!!!

Will winter ever end??? Snowing like crazy in Salt Lake.

On to Spokane Washington. It was 39 degrees but I was curious about what this was as I looked out my hotel window. So, I got a Starbucks and investigated.

Now I get it. As I walked around the corner I saw the beast and why there was a rope across the river. It was to keep boats and people from going over the falls. The falls generate electricity here in Spokane. In 1922 they built a powerplant to generate the cities electricity. It still works today.

There is a bridge that spans across the falls. You can feel the spray from the water below. It was kind of cold today though. The water turns a generator that produces electricity.

Well home tonight. Can't wait.

Winter Wonderland

Wow what a day. We have been flying around this week in a winter wonderland. The first day we were in Charlotte and they received a couple of inches of snow and the whole operation shut down. Not in Minneapolis. Take a look at where Santa Lives.

Trying to taxi around the airport with out any taxi lines. They are all covered by snow.

Landing can be tricky as everything goes white when you put the aircraft into reverse. Slippery!

Even driving the baggage carts has it's challenges.

This is the view as we start to get deiced. Cool machines. They call it the car wash. There is one of these contraptions on each side of the airplane. He has a nozzle on the front and sprays the aircraft with deice fluid.

On to California for the night. These are the Rockies. Very beautiful snow covered.

Even the Grand Canyon has snow on it. Cool!

Lots of traffic today.

Well it has been a long day of fighting the weather. I am tired, see ya tomorrow. I am getting some sleep.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

What a crazy month of flying. To get a bunch of days off over Christmas I have had to fly my buns off for the first half of December. But we did it and I am home for Christmas! I am very excited to be off. So many of my partners are working and a way from their families. It can be a very hard month when you are away. You get through it but there is nothing like waking up on Christmas morning to the family.

I spent most of the month looking at this. We have had so much snow and flying and LANDING in it is always a challenge. Imagine landing a 170,000 pound object at 170 mph on an icy piece of cement! All in a days work.

Just another great view.

The Holiday traffic is not just on the ground. Fun to see.

Change in Latitude

Wow. I woke up this morning and walked outside to find our hotel right on the beach.

I walked out of the hotel this morning in search of a Starbucks and wow, we are on the beach. It was dark last night when I got in and I was tired. Just seemed like another hotel until I woke up.

It is beautiful here. I found a quick place to sweep my honey off too for the weekend!

Sorry Kidos but Starbucks and the beach, well that is a romantic get away.

I captured a few moments to help keep you going until we can both put our feet in the sand!

Up in the Air

Hey, I am up in the air again. This trip I was in some pretty neat places. I spent one night in Cincinnati and stayed right across the street from where Casey was born. That brought back some great memories of spending New Years Eve in the hospital. I ate at the Cracker Barrel we use to go to all the time and had some hot rolls at one of our favorite places, O' Charlies!

We were in Chicago, Atlanta, Ft Lauderdale and New York. This first picture is flying out of Atlanta. The leaves are just changing. It is hard to believe when we have already had snow and the leaves have left long ago.

I Love New York! This is on Broadway close to where we stayed and as you can see they are getting ready for Christmas.

This is the New York City Public Library. We were so close and did not realize it. It was very beautiful. Is that where books come from?

This view is walking up the last flight of stairs to one of the many libraries. I love the contrast of the very white marble and the deep dark wood carvings. I asked if they had the Cat in the Hat and I got a weird look from the librarian. I guess not.

The paintings were beautiful.

Behind the library is Bryant Park. It has many small shops and is bustling with activity including street performers. There is also an ice rink you can skate at like at the Rockefeller Center.

This video was very cool. We are streaking across the sky right above a layer of clouds. It is one of the rare times you can actually feel how fast you are going. Check it out!

Rocky Mountain High

This trip was pretty cool. I started in Philly and then Salt Lake, but a new interesting place I flew into was Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It is a little town that is all about skiing in the winter. We stay at the ski resort which is at the bottom of the hill. The cool thing about flying in here is the descent into the hole. There are mountains topping 13,000 feet all around. They are the Grand Teton Mountains. The picture below is flying into Jackson Hole. If you look closely and see the boulder sticking out of the clouds, well that is were we are going. Jackson Hole sits in a basin with mountains all around and today the fog has rolled in and does not want to leave. We will fly a tricky approach right down between the mountains and descend beneath the clouds to land on the little mountain runway.

These are some great pictures as we circle down the ridge to position ourselves on the approach for landing. We are about 16,000 feet. The mountains are between 10,000 and 13,000 feet.

This picture is on the ground. Notice the ice on the trees from the fog. A little freaky descending into the clouds knowing all the mountains are around.

This is down main street in Jackson Hole. You can see the ski hill in the background. It is a very quaint little town that seems like you stepped back in time. The fog finally burned off and it was a great day in town.

These are Elk antlers that are shed on the National Elk Refuge and the local Boy Scouts collected them and made this archway. Pretty cool. We are about a stones throw from Yellowstone.

This is a secluded little town with lots of history from the wild west including paintings by Ansel Adams ( a famous artist). We will come visit one day and maybe ski the hill!

Tomorrow on to Salt Lake, Orange County, California and then home. Can't wait to see ya!

Up Up and Away!

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet, it's a bird, its a plane it's, it's, oh a plane.

(You will have to pause my awesome music to hear the action).

The skies are very crowded and I love seeing the other aircraft fly by. They are about 1000 feet away as they sail by. Hard to get a good picture. The actual view is much better.

This picture was in Memphis. It was a row of Regional Jets all lined up.

This picture is flying over the San Mateo Mts which are just to the Northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Look at the snow!

The Grand Canyon just never gets old. The view is always a little different depending on the light and time of year. We are flying at 38,000 feet. Very cool.

Well on to Vegas Baby!