My wife waited until I began to stir from my sleep. For some time that morning she could hear the texts buzz my phone and knew exactly what they were about.
Before I had even opened my eyes she whispered, “Lou, Bourdain is gone.” I jumped. For a second, in my twilight mind, I thought for sure I had heard her wrong or I had dreampt what she said. It was only after grabbing my phone and seeing the awaiting texts that I realized this was no dream.
I don’t cry. That’s just who I am and have ever been. That morning, laying in my bed, searching for any article with the story… I cried.
The specifics were sketchy at first. Then as the day went on the details and speculations began to trickle in. Anthony Bourdain, the Hemingway of food had gone out on his own terms.
I always use the word “hero” with caution. I realize that people are fickle and fragile animals. I know that to put someone, anyone, on pedestal of admiration is a dangerous thing. One small blunder or a hidden skeleton and you begin to question everything you admired about that person. I can truly say that Bourdain was my hero.
It’s been years since I’ve so much as logged into this blog. I’ll admit, I simply gave up on it. In thinking about Bourdain’s work and how it affected me, I began to take an inventory of the many ways he impressed change in my life. He introduced me to so many authors, artists, chefs, tastes, music and places. He taught me to redefine the way I travel and attempt to understand culture. One of the most influential things he did was make me believe that I could. That given enough hard work and consistency I could find satisfaction in anything I was passionate about. So I started a blog, this blog to be exact. I began taking the years of travel journals and notes and displaying them publicly. I was creating and within a year, I had gotten published (it was a small travel article but it counts). It had all started with a book called Kitchen Confidential by this guy named Bourdain.
I remember saying to my wife that morning that the world is now a darker place without Anthony Bourdain. In retrospect, I’m wrong. The world really isn’t any darker. The world just lost the man who would carry the torch into those sometimes dark corners. The world lost the man who would demystify scary places with scary people and their scary food. Most importantly we lost the writer and the artist.
Maybe it’s time to come back. To create again. To do what Anthony Bourdain used to say:
Like gadgets, treasure hunting, and being part of a semi-secret society? I may have the hobby for you!
One of the risks of traveling to the same destination on a frequent basis is that eventually you run out of things to do. If that destination is Sault Ste. Marie Michigan it doesn’t take very long at all! (My apologies to city of Sault Ste. Marie but in my defense I recently asked a local what there is to do in the town. His answer: “The best thing to do in the ‘Soo’ is drive somewhere else.”)
On my most recent venture to the Upper Peninsula it was decided that the day’s entertainment was going to require a little creativity. Equipped with nothing more than an old GPS we set out on a literal treasure hunt. Our adventure began online at http://www.geocaching.com. After plugging in the local zip code, a map of the city and surrounding areas appeared speckled with treasure chest shaped dots. With a few clicks and the use of the hotel’s printer our day was mapped out.
Pretty sure we had the original GPS unit
Deeming myself the Navigator, my co-worker gave me a brief tutorial on how to plug in the our first objective’s latitude and longitude as described on the print out. (This part is by far the most technically difficult part of geocaching. If you can program a TV you’re definitely qualified!) Once the coordinates were entered the GPS informed us that we were slightly over 3 miles away and provided a large arrow pointing in the general direction.
Attempting to satisfy the GPS’ insistent arrow and monitoring how the distance counted down we found ourselves weaving and backtracking our way out of town. Eventually we were guided to the parking lot that served a trail head. Leaving our rental car behind we walked into the thick forest on a narrow, sandy path. We finally reached a point in the woods where the GPS and trail were in disagreement. The trail pointed directly North and the arrow pointed directly West. Taking the GPS’ word that we were 100 feet short of our target we shrugged our shoulders and walked off the path carefully placing each step. Navigating through the mud and undergrowth I watched as the distance ticked down from 100 ft….50 ft……25 ft…..10……5…….1 and to my amazement we found…..NOTHING. For 20 minutes we looked in the vicinity for some clue that would lead us to our treasure. As we were coming to the conclusion that this waypoint had been placed on the website by the mosquitoes that had begun to devour us, my walking stick made an uncharacteristic THUMP. As I looked at the tree stump I had struck, I noticed something unnatural. This particular stump was hollow and had what seemed to be a crease. As my fellow explorer appeared out of the brush I pushed back the top of the stump to reaveal…
THE GEOCACHE!!!!
Inside the compartment we found trinkets from various locations, a log book, some hand written notes, and a variety of laminated, homemade team cards.
Upon returning home I was able to spend a little more time researching the sport of Geocaching. I quickly realized that geocachers, like most hobbyist, range from the weekend warrior to the extremist who plan vacations around these tiny hidden boxes. With geocaches located, literally, around the world there is no shortage of geocaching destinations.
Interested in how connected the world really is? There are geocaching accessories designed with that in mind. “Travel Bugs,” are dog tag shaped medallions that have a website and serial number (blurred out in the picture) printed on them.
Simply place your travel bug in a cache and track its progress as it travels the world. One of the unwritten rules of the sport is, “take something, leave something.” With that in mind as you bid your travel bug bon voyage, pick up someone else’s and carry it to a cache somewhere interesting!
For those seeking an educational twist to the sport there is multi-caching. As the name implies, multi-caching is a geocache with multiple destinations ending in one big geocache. Recently my wife and I set out to complete a multi-cache in the downtown area of the city we live in. After discovering the first cache we were given clues to deciphering the coordinates to the next stop. This often included looking at a historical landmark or plaque and doing simple math with the various dates. We spent the better part of a day walking the collection of landmarks in our town answering historical riddles. We inadvertently learned a great deal about our town and were never more than a half a mile from a frosty pint. (Ironically, I learned that one of my favorite watering holes was, at one time, the largest hotel West of Chicago and East of the Mississippi!)
So if this sounds like any fun at all I encourage you to log on to http://www.geocaching.com and get started. You’ll be amazed to find that there are caches hidden in places you pass every day!
More Pictures from my first day of Geocaching, including the ones of the bomb bunkers in the previous post. (There was a geocache hidden inside one of them.)
“And let’s get one thing straight. There’s a big difference between a pilot and an aviator. One is a technician; the other is an artist in love with flight.”
— E. B. Jeppesen
There is a certain amount of dangerous risk when one chooses to become an employee of the extracurricular thing he loves. Once you have made your hobby a vocation the additional baggage causes your passion to be indistinguishable from work. It is when this inevitable transformation has occurred, when you begin to loathe what you once loved, that it is important to return to where you first fell in love. For some it is as easy as a day in an art museum, looking over photographs you took before you were a pro, or reading the book that first inspired you. For me it is OSHKOSH.
Before I begin, allow me to preface this post. Oshkosh, or EAA’s Airventure to outsiders, is an aviation fly-in convention. Conventions are, by nature, usually attended by the extremely bias. (You would have to be to spend a week in a tent, shower with your closest friends, and use a port-o-potty just to be around airplanes.) So with that said, this post is not filled with stories of my travels and descriptions of my flights. No Ladies and Gents this post is the sappy love story, a description of why I do what I do and the fuel of what keeps me flying. It is at this time that without any hard feelings you may move on to the checking of email, the paying of bills, or whatever you use the internet for.
For those that have decided to read on:
As I was saying, it is a jeopardous undertaking to do something you care dearly about for work. Take it from me, for 2 years I had the privilege, on my days off, of traveling anywhere in the world for free. When my friends and family would enviously question why I wasn’t in some foreign country or laying on an exotic beach I would simply reply, “I’ve just spent a week in an airplane. The last thing I want to do on my day off is climb back in an airplane.” Those that knew how much I relished even the thought of flight took my words for insanity.
EAA Airventure
The EAA was established in 1953 by Paul Poberezny as a flying club. The founders of this club were mostly tinkerers who would either modify existing airplanes or build airplanes from scratch in their garages. Because their planes were modified or home built the FAA sanctioned that they would be flown under a new category and regulation, EXPERIMENTAL. The word EXPERIMENTAL was to be displayed on the outside of the aircraft thus birthing the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA). The EAA which started with 36 members now boasts nearly 170,000. Their mission is to keep aviation alive; bring together civilian minds with unique innovations; and to pass on the legacy of aviation to future generations. Although countless local EAA chapters maintain this spirit throughout the year, it is EAA’s Airventure that is it’s most visible event. For 1 week a year aviators, aviators’ families, and aviation enthusiasts make the pilgrimage to Oshkosh Wisconsin to be part of this celebration.
A10 Warthog over the North 40
For many it is a family reunion. A chance to spend time among a brotherhood in an exclusive fraternity. My wife has said that I speak a different language around other pilots. So for many it is a chance to speak in another tongue. (Statements like, “…So we were on the STAR when the MFD went to crap. The LP was fluctuating but the TGT was stable. We figured it was something with the common BUSS. So we had to shoot the ILS to DH with the backup RMI.” have conjured unnoticed eye rolling from my wife’s face.) Walking down the rows of planes one sees the tents placed carefully under the wings, making Oshkosh look like a refugee city for pilots. If you stop to admire someone’s meticulous craftsmanship it isn’t uncommon to be offered a beer, brat, or s’more as the proud owner boasts about his plane. As the conversation continues it becomes apparent that I’m as envious of him for having built a working plane in his attic as he is that I get to do this for a living. If you care to witness what this common bond can do, arrive at your campsite after dark. It is probable that within 5 minutes of you starting to set your tent up that other campers will approach. With lanterns and flashlights in hand they will illuminate your rented real estate while you erect your temporary home. I’ve seen someone start a campfire for a complete stranger as the newly arrived residents unpacked their gear. If nothing else your new neighbor’s conversation will be a welcomed, positive re-enforcement when you snap your back-up tent stake in half.
My home at Oshkosh
To describe my experiences at Oshkosh would be to describe years of week long experiences dating back to my first Oshkosh at the age of 7. I’ve met many of aviation’s historic figures such as Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson, Jim Lovell, Burt and Dick Rutan, and Patty Wagstaff. I saw the Concorde up close and in flight; witnessed the flights of spaceship one and white knight 2; I watched as Sean D. Tucker broke the Guinness World Record for consecutive snap rolls; and watched Harrison Ford give rides to little kids. All of these stories are common to EAAers and can be heard almost identically from campfire to campfire during the week. Of all of my memories at Oshkosh the one I cherish the most occurred my first time at Airventure. One can’t imagine the excitement of a 7 year old boy, infatuated with airplanes, when his father told him that we would be camping out under our airplane in the midst of a sea of planes.
Sir Richard Branson throwing me a wave!
Once there, I spent days walking around the field with my mouth agape in a gentle stress that I would miss something. Once my father was satisfied that I could navigate the grounds on my own without getting into trouble he allowed me to explore. With a ten dollar bill in my pocket for lunch my friend (son of the co-owner of my dad’s plane, both of whom accompanied us that year) and I set off to take advantage of our new freedom. We walked around for the entire morning while our fathers took in some of the seminars. When lunch time rolled around we shopped for the cheapest food possible knowing that any left over change would go to souvenirs. With hot dogs in hand we found our way to a shaded picnic table to eat and plan our route for the afternoon. I was 2 bites into my tube steak when an older looking man walked up to our table and asked if he could sit down by us. Being timid around strangers, and noticing that this large picnic table was obviously too big for 2 young boys, we nodded our approval and went back to the map. Perhaps intrigued by our enthusiasm and knowledge of aviation the old man with his straw hat and white mustache began to quiz us. “What’s your favorite airplane? Why? What kind of plane is that? Are you going to be a pilot when you grow up? Want some of my chips?” The guy was starting to annoy us. As we started to reciprocate some of the old man’s questions we heard our names from behind as our fathers approached. When they finally came close enough their faces looked like they had just seen Elvis. Both of them walked right past us and began to shake hands with our lunch mate. “It is such an honor to meet you sir,” I remember my friend’s dad saying. “Honor? Well this is really going to blow your hair back, I just ate this guys BBQ flavored chips!” I thought. Once our new friend had finished his food and told us, “see you at the show” our fathers began an interrogation that would have made the FBI proud. Finally, realizing that we had no clue what had just taken place, my father said, “YOU JUST ATE LUNCH WITH BOB HOOVER!!!” (Now for non aviation people that story is very anti-climatic. For you aviation people I offer you an electronic high five!) Bob “the pilot’s pilot” Hoover is perhaps the best aviator to ever climb into a cockpit. He was a WWII pilot, a major contributer to the first supersonic flights, and Chuck Yeager’s chase man. His signature airplane, the Shriek Commander now sits in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this was equivalent to meeting one of the Wright brothers! Later that day during the afternoon air show we watched as a crowd of people tried to get his autograph before he climbed into his plane. His demonstration showed what a pilot in tune with the basics of flight and his airplane could do. He started the show with both engines of his plane running. As the aerobatic demonstration went on he shut down one engine followed by the other. When he started the show, he had used a small stool to climb into the cockpit. As he finished the demonstration, with both engines off, he was able to land and roll to the same spot and deplane onto the same stool. (He was also famous for being able to roll an airplane completely around while pouring tea into a cup not spilling a drop. If you don’t believe me watch the end of this video clip.)
As I’ve told people before, Oshkosh is extremely hard to explain. Simply put, it is something that has to be experienced. I could go on for pages reminiscing about my times here, but I can smell the campfires. Soon my friends will be here to tell me it’s time to go to Oshkosh’s fish fry. I must leave my tent to make future memories and tell others about my past ones. Already I feel recharged, ready to continue on in my profession for another 51 weeks. I’ve realized, once again, what it is that keeps me at the departure end of a runway. I think Ernest Gann put it best when he said,
“We did not begin to fly because we might make more money with an airplane than we might have if otherwise employed. We are, almost without exception, in love. It is more than love at this stage; we are each bewitched, gripped solidly in a passion few other callings could generate.”
So if you find yourself intrigued enough to travel the 3 and half hours from Chicago I’ll see you there! And is always the case with Oshkosh, there’s a cold beer waiting for you.
As I’ve said in previous posts there is a longer span between my trips these days. Because of that, there could be weeks in between posts. I have decided to write some of my past experiences in the mean time. The following occurred in first few days of 2009.
McSorely’s Old Ale House
There I was sitting in a classroom, my first week with the airline, on the day when we would be given our assignments. All of us were nervous, we had heard nightmares about being based in New York City and now we prayed that chance would give us an alternative domicile. The man that would hand out our bases walked into the room full of newbie airline pilots. One of my classmates and soon to be life long friend asked quietly, “any spots open in Cincinnati?” The man laughed and said, “I want you to practice a phrase you’ll be using a lot, ‘ha you dewin’. With that our fates had all been sealed. As I mulled on this fact for the following months of training I decided to make the most of it and compose a list of things that I wanted to do or see while “living” in New York City.
In the first few weeks of what was to be 2 years of temporary residence in New York City I flew with a captain who happened to be a native New Yorker. I handed him my list of extra curricular goals. As he read through it some of the items made him smile while others made him roll his eyes. After a few minutes he took out his pen and wrote something on the paper. He scribble the words, McSorely’s Old Ale House above all of the other items. I took the paper back from him as he said, “you forgot the most important one.”
For the better part of two years I had tried and failed to get “the guys” together to find this legendary place. In the mean time I started to read up on the ale house. Opened in 1854 Mcsorely’s is to this day one of the oldest continuously open establishments in New York. It stayed open through civil war, WWI, WWII, and prohibition. It wasn’t until 1978 that women were allowed in as the result of protests. In typical New York fashion the owner in an affront to the woman’s movement maintained one bathroom to be used by both sexes. Mcsorely’s inspiring atmosphere facilitated the creativity of people such as Abraham Lincoln and John Lennon. In 1925 E.E. Cummings wrote the famous poem sitting in McSorely’s and in 1928 John Sloan painted “McSorely’s Saturday Night.” All of these facts plus a touch of rumor made me want to have my own McSorely’s experience.
As a result of a hurting economy and airline cutbacks my time in New York City was coming to a close. I sat in my apartment in New York in my final days there with my list in hand. Most all of the items had a check mark followed by a date. I had gone to Katz deli and eaten a pastrami sandwich. I had gone to Coney Island and eaten a Nathan’s hot dog after riding the cyclone as Charles Lindbergh had done in the days before his famous trip across the Atlantic. I had met a celebrity on the street (Conan O’brien) and had seen time square after midnight. But there still remained one item scribbled on the paper in handwriting that wasn’t my own: McSorely’s Old Ale House. I thought out loud to my friends, also preparing for their final week, “well, we never made it to McSorely’s.” I folded the paper and stepped outside to make a phone call.
As I was finishing my phone call my friend Dave walked out and said, ” lets go for a walk.” I followed him for 4 blocks before I finally asked, “Dave where the hell are we going it’s 9PM.” As we walked on he said, “Lou we only have 3 days left here and who knows if we’ll ever come back or if you and I will ever get to hang out again. Lets find McSorely’s and send ourselves off!” I could have cried.
As directed by the captain almost 2 years previous to the day we took the subway to the village. As we emerged onto the street we found the nearest police officer and said, “hey, you know where we can find McSorely’s?” As the captain had promised the cop walked us the 4 blocks to a modest black door, above which hung a green sign that read, “McSorely’s Old Ale House this is our 154th year. I crossed the threshold and was overwhelmed. We stood there barely inside in awe. Everyone was shoulder to shoulder in the small, dusty tavern. There was no jukebox, the only music was a group of people at a large table singing and slamming their beers on the surface. My eyes labored to focus, the decor had evolved with the ages. The walls were covered with hand written poems by famous authors, sketches of the tavern signed by famous artists, and priceless memorabilia that had never been purchased at any antique store.
We finally fought our way to the bar where the wood top was covered in loose one dollar bills, the bar keep’s tips for the night. When we were finally able to make eye contact the bar tender yelled, “DARK OR LIGHT.” In 154 years of operation McSorely’s had only served two beverages; McSorely’s light or McSorely’s dark. No apple martini’s here! Me wanting to live out the experience to the fullest and at the right price of $1.25 I got two of each. As we waited for our beers to arrive I looked up and found the one thing I absolutely had to see at McSorely’s. In 1911 the United States had decided to get involved in WWI. McSorely’s generously threw a going away party for all of the neighborhood boys who were leaving to fight in Europe. As the story goes the Old Ale House cooked up a flock of turkeys with all of the fixin’s. As the party began to wind down and the realization that the boys would be leaving soon, someone grabbed a handful of the wishbones and made an impromptu speech to the effect of, “Here are the wishbones. Lets give them to the bar tender to hold and we’ll all come back after the war and break them!” To this day directly over the bar hanging on an old out of use light fixture are 19 wishbones belonging to the boys that never made it back. If I had not known where to look I would have passed the dust covered fixture off as a result of bad cleaning. But instead I stood there, emotional, knowing what I was seeing, a promise that we will never forget.
The Wish Bones
With beers in hand and several sips out of each brew we turned and looked for a place to nest and take in this historic place. We found two seats at the end of a long table and sat down among the many other patrons. The table tops had trenches rubbed out where centuries of elbows had rested. As the night went on the empty glasses began to pile up. We sang with the crowd and were taken in by a group of locals. The only beers we had actually purchased were the first round when we had initially arrived. Our new friends were taking turns buying us rounds and refused reciprocation. (We would end up eating at a diner at 5am with these people, their names erased by the effects of beer.)
We closed McSorely’s Old Ale House out that night. I had accomplished my goal and we had “sent ourselves off.” The city had truly given me a farewell gift.
In the cab back to our place the sun beginning to rise, Dave turned to me and said, “Well Graham was it all you wanted it to be?” I sat and thought with a smile then said, “Dave, if Heaven is what we want it to be, when I die, I’ll see ya at McSorely’s.”
“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been. Travelers don’t know where they’re going.” -Paul Theroux
In some of my wanderings around Aspen I found myself at the gates of multi-million dollar homes where I am sure I was being watched by the dozens of cameras scanning the entrances. On other days my walks led past famous local landmarks and businesses like Little Annie’s Eating House and The Paradise Bakery. (Which, judging by the line out the door at 6:45 AM and the aroma that could be sensed down the block, had to be the place to get your morning sugar fix.) Continuing on I found that the street ended about a half mile out of town. It was here that a narrow trail began into the woods. Feeling this path could possibly quench my craving for some sort of nature experience and not being able to hear any banjos in the distance, I forged on. The trail followed a mountain stream and eventually came to a bridge. It was at this moment that I had an epiphany. There is a photograph that sits on a shelf in my grandmother’s house. In the photo a small stream flows by a 6 year old boy panning for gold near a bridge. I asked my grandmother once where the picture was taken, “Somewhere in Colorado.” she answered. That 6 year old boy was me and that bridge now stood before me in Aspen. I was 6 years old the first time I came to Aspen. My Grandparents had made this a destination on a long driving tour of the west. When we first had entered Colorado I was allowed to purchase a gold pan at a tourist shop. At the next stream my Grandfather gave me a crash course in the lucrative art of panning for gold. For weeks on the trip anytime we drove by a body of water I would beg that we pull over so that I could go to work. At the time I was fully convinced that by following this routine I would be able to pay for the trip with money to spare. For hours I would test my grandfather’s patience by holding up my tweezers and asking, “Gold?” To which, for the most part, he would answer, “pyrite.” To this day, in a small souvenir shop treasure chest is a vile of water. At the bottom of the vile are the results of the few times that my Grandfather would answer, “Gold!” Here I was 21 years later a little heavier, a little smarter, but just as enchanted by this area as I was back then.
My hike brought me to the edge of a meadow where I found a memorial to a fellow aviator who had taken the flight West. At the threshold of the field were two plaques that paid homage to the life of Henry Deutschendorf Jr. the singer, philanthropist, and pilot. The engravings explained that Henry’s wife Annie and the city of Aspen had dedicated these woods as a nature sanctuary in his name. The name on the plaque was not Henry Deutschendorf Jr., it was the name he was more commonly known by,
John Denver.
John Denver was killed on October 12th, 1997 shortly after taking off from Monterey California when the aircraft he was piloting plunged into the Pacific Ocean. He had consumed all of the fuel in one of the plane’s tanks which resulted in the failure of his engine. In the struggle to turn the valve (which was located behind his head) and switch the tanks, it is believed, that he inadvertently moved the flight controls accelerating his dive to the water.
It was the 4th of July and as I walked back towards town an F-16 doing a low fly-by announced that the parade was starting. I was pleasantly surprised by the Independence day parade. I had expected to see an over-produced, Mardi Gras-esque spectacle put on for the tourist’s viewing. Instead I found a small town local affair displaying humble floats, a dozen mountain bike and rock climbing clubs, a herd of Harleys, the mayor, and the local adult female ice hockey team the Mother Puckers. (I was warned by the guy that stood next to me for the entirety of the parade that, “you do not mess with those chicks they WILL hurt you.” I also found out that in 1995, the year before the Colorado Avalanche won the stanley cup, Patrick Roy spent the off season in Aspen to train in the high altitude. In the time he was there he played pick up goalie for the mothers and wore their white jersey with huge hot pink lips on the front.)
4th of July parade.
With the parade complete I once again walked on, this time heading for the ski area. After paying for a ticket I boarded a cozy gondola and headed for the top of the mountain at 11,212 feet. During the 20 minute ride I began to notice that other passengers in opposite gondolas were carrying bags filled with frisbees of various sizes and colors. I thought to myself, “throwing a frisbee would be one of the last things I would do at 11,212 feet let alone throwing many frisbees.”
The city on the way to the top.
Reaching the summit I asked one of the lift operators about the people that I had seen. He smiled and said, “Aspen is the highest, regulation frisbee golf course in the world. People who are really into it come here just to say they’ve played here.” Sure enough as I walked around the top of the mountain I watched groups of frisbee pilgrims throwing their disks at basket like “holes”. I thought about renting a set of frisbees just to say I had done it until I saw a disc land on its edge and travel 100 yards down the mountain. Behind the escaping frisbee was the thrower who was about to learn that running down was way easier than climbing up. On my way back to the lift I stopped in at the beautiful lodge located at the summit. Inside, the magnificent views were accented by red, white, and blue decorations for a 4th of July party taking place that evening. I didn’t get to spend as much time at the top as I would have liked. It was time for me to head down so that I could get cleaned up for my own 4th of July festivities.
One of the first lessons I learned as a brand new professional pilot was that passengers will always correlate your skills as a pilot with your appearance, confidence, and demeanor. I was told that a poorly knotted neck tie, limp handshake, or skittish behavior would cause a passenger to question his or her own safety. Although I assure you there is no relationship between one’s appearance and one’s skill, we as crew members remain under the passenger’s microscope for the entire time we are in their presence. It is because of this fact that a crew will go out of their way to avoid a passenger once safely at the destination. This 4th of July it would prove to be impossible for us to follow this unwritten rule. We had been invited to the client’s birthday party which coincided with the 4th of July festivities. Grudgingly, knowing it would be a session of “stump the pilot,” we accepted the gracious invitation and arrived at his condo. As the night progressed we were pleasantly surprised. Our host and his many guests were extremely hospitable and welcoming. We were offered drink from bottles that, individually, could cover a luxury car’s monthly payment. The food display consisted of varieties of smoked fish, exotic cheeses, and morsels I had only read about in my wife’s gourmet magazine. (Later as we walked to our hotel with a plate of leftovers I stated to my compatriots that, “these people coming from the fireworks are staring me down like I’m a Las Vegas buffet.”) Our host’s veranda, which I’m sure was larger than my current living space, overlooked the town and proved to be the best seat in the city to view the fireworks. Halfway up the mountain the fireworks were shot off, each blast of light allowing you to view a brief silhouette of the altitudinous piece of granite. We left shortly after the grand finale amongst protests and invitations for late night sushi, assuring everyone we would see them at the plane the next day.
Fireworks over downtown Aspen
Not knowing how delayed we could be leaving the area I thought it best to plan for the worst case and rest my final day in Aspen. Before the limo picked us up that evening I spent my time buying last minute souvenirs, reading, and catching 2 rugby matches in the rugby field across from my room. (If you ever have a chance to catch a college rugby match I suggest you do it. The game is both barbaric and fast!)
Rugby in Wagner Park
Arriving at the airplane I was suddenly reminded for the first time in 3 days that I had come here for work. I couldn’t think of a better way to end my great stay here than to fly the boss’ shiny airplane home to my back yard, literally. Our departure briefing was similar to the one that took place in Vegas 3 days prior. This time, however, we included contingencies for emergencies occurring on the runway due to the fact that we had limited real estate to work with. Takeoff, with the exception of the rare emergency situation is the busiest time for a pilot. This particular takeoff would prove to be even busier for me. Along with my normal duties of monitoring airspeeds and instruments I would now have an extra task. Jet engines, like car engines, cannot produce full power at high altitudes. The thin nature of the air does not efficiently cool the engines at low speeds. As we rolled down the runway it was my job to place my hand on top of the captains hand (which was on the throttles. I assure you this was done in the interest of safety not romance.) and slowly reduce the power as the internal temperature of the turbines approached the limit. The takeoff went as briefed with the exception of the fact that a rather large thunderstorm had placed itself some distance beyond the end of the canyon. Once clear of all obstacles we were forced take up a heading north and fly 100 miles around the storm. (At 10 miles a minute this 100 mile detour took 10 minutes.) Leveling off at 45,000 feet (flight level 450 as we call it) we could hear over the radio that Denver International Airport was in the midst of a melt down. The storm that had caused us to venture from our planned route was reeking havoc on all traffic headed to the mile high city. We listened as holding patterns were filling up and cautious pilots planned diversions to other airports for fuel. Comfortably at cruise we ate a slice of birthday cake, sipped a cup of coffee, and thanked fate this time we weren’t going to Denver. Scraping the last bits of frosting from my plate the scenery below transformed from sharp mountainous terrain to a quilt of farmland and pasture. I had once again been forced to leave the landscape that I love. As I checked in with the approach controller I came to a bittersweet conclusion. I was sorry to not have been able to have spent more time in Aspen, but on the other hand to quote a song, “There’s a light on in Chicago and I know I should be home.”
Next Trip… The Hamptons August 10-12.
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