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I was fortunate enough to be able to spend the week in Palm Springs, CA. We took the tram to the top of Mt San Jacinto and hiked about 4 miles. It's a gorgeous nature preserve. I haven't been up there in 12 years, and not much had changed. Guess that's why it's called a preserve.
We also took a trip down memory lane for me...we went to Bombay Beach at the Salton Sea. My grandfather, for reasons unbeknown to us, had a mobile home lot out there. I guess it used be quite the place in the 70s. It is anything but, now. It's a photographer's dream, a landowner's nightmare, and where they shot the music video for What It's Like by Everlast off the Whitey Ford Sings the Blues album. It's the blues for most, but sentimental for me. Miss ya, Grandpa...your place still looks great!!! It needs your green thumb!!!
On the ride up...the floor rotates 360 degrees twice as you ascend and descend. Really cool!!!
I thought I saw Jesus coming down through this clearing...
Whale bones at 8,500' MSL. Or maybe a tree...
The view looking Southwest toward Palm Springs. The Salton Sea is just out of view of the camera, but not to the naked eye.
No I didn't stage this picture. Beautiful desolation...
A large storm in the late 70s / early 80s buried several lots in a few feet of water. Instead of retrieving the trailers, they were left to rot. And rot they did.
These are the worst of the worst. Most of the lots are more than liveable.
This is my grandfather's old place. It looked vacant, but it might just be a winter home for someone. The avacodo tree is looking very healthy and the locks on the gate look relatively new, so it's being taken care of.
It's not the long straight road that's impressive. It's the fact that you don't see another car going either way for MILES.
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| So my buddy Scott, the guy I used to fly with, is on a trip in Bangkok, Thailand. I got this picture through a friend of friend. Guess he's (on right) enjoying himself...
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| I left Monday morning for a trip out west that was supposed to take all week, but ended this morning at 2:30am when we landed back at Indy. We didn't even leave Burbank, CA until 9:30p EST. Needless to say, it was a very long day accompanied by a very long night. It's all worth it to sleep in my own bed next to my gorgeous wife.
I think it was my last post that I was bragging about taking off into Chicago's skyline at night. Well that was what man created. This time I got to see what God can do. I was flying so I couldn't take any pictures of our departure out of Burbank, but take my word for it. That...was awesome. Those of you Californians understand that there is an east-west ridge that divides the Burbank area from Los Angeles downtown and the South Bay. We took off southbound out of the Burbank Airport, topped that east - west ridge and the ENTIRE Los Angeles basin came into view. Downtown, Hollywood (and the sign), the South Bay, the Palos Verdes peninsula, LAX, Catalina Island, etc all visible from my panoramic office window. To top it all off, the sun was about 2 feet above the horizon. We made a graceful right turn westbound directly into the sun, a turn northbound, then finally homebound. Priceless.
A lot of aviation is cool. A lot of aviation is beautiful. These breathtaking, captivating moments, however, are very rare. Moments when you are so captivated by a scene that time stands still allowing your mind to soak it all in. It's like in the movie Contact when Jodi Foster goes through the "tele-transporter" and 15-20 minutes goes by for her but the rest of the world experiences 5 seconds. It's like God's little magic trick He hardwired into us so that no matter how busy we got, we would
always have time to enjoy His handiwork.
But in the blink of an eye it's over, and you go back to work before you crash it into the mountain in front of you.
 
 
A sunset at 41000 ft while racing into the darkness at 625 mph. It goes quick...
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| Very rarely do we fly on the weekends. It is one of the major perks of the job. However, today was the exception. Unfortunately, I had very little notice and we kind of had to scramble to replace my fabulous assisting at a wedding Jess was shooting, but we did get that taken care of...
We flew to Chicago Midway airport, which is just on the southwest edge of Chicago, then on to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, TX. After gorging ourselves on Chili's baby back ribs, we headed back to the airport to get ready to do the trip in reverse. On the way back to the airport, we got lost, as usual. Funny thing about us pilots. When we're in the air, we have the latest and greatest technology at our fingertips giving us situational awareness the Wright Brothers didn't even know to dream of. However, put us on the ground in the crew car and we are sheep without a shepherd. The boss showed up before we finished watching the Michigan Wolverines win, and it was time for a sunset cruise...
One of the coolest situations you can find yourself in is taking off of runway 4 at Chicago Midway Airport at night. You are aimed right at downtown and you can see all of it, beautifully lit up. I wish I could take a picture or video at that point so that others could experience it, but takeoff is sort of like the most critical phase of flight, and snapping photographs by the flight crew is frowned upon. Guess that's an experience only those in the "club" have...
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