Ft Pierce, Florida

May 31 - June 12

After all the hard work of the mapping season was over one of the other mapping pilots and I went down to Florida to build some multi-engine time. We took a trip down to the everglades and took an air boat tour.

We saw lots of wildlife and most importantly a couple of large alligators. Apparently they are big fans of marshmallows, and pretty much anything else that might land in the water.

As an added bonus we just happened to be there for the latest shuttle launch.

And now I will take a short vacation in Grand Rapids before heading back to Oregon for fire patrol duty again this summer.

Storm Chasing in Colorado and Kansas

May 10 - 27


While I was in Denver I was stationed there with another pilot who was a bit of an amateur storm chaser. So we went out one day and got some shots of a hail storm in Ft Lupton, Colorado.

All the white in the picture is hail and it was so deep on the road that it scraped the bottom of the car as we drove through. After the hail storm a heavy rain came through and melted most of the hail. All of the farm fields became rivers, draining into the next lower farm field.

On another day we drove into western Kansas and chased a building storm cloud which actually ended up producing a tornado.

Denver, CO

May 10 - 27


This was definitely the highlight stop of the whole trip! All the way from the midwest the land is very flat, mostly farmland, until all of a sudden the Rockies spring up out of nowhere. You don't even realize that you've gained about 5,000 ft in elevation along the way.

This was the view from the airport in Erie, which is on the west side of Denver. We worked from here to the west over the non-snow covered mountain ridges and north toward Ft Collins. This was also by far the busiest airspace we worked in the whole trip!

The best road trip was to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was great to be able to see it before the summer rush had started. We hiked a 7 mile loop through the park.

At both ends of the hike we walked through huge herds of elk (and I mean hundreds of them). We were literally so close we could reach out and pet them.

We also drove to the top of Pike's Peak and walked through the rock formations in "Garden of the Gods" park near Colorado Springs.


P.S. If you're ever in Lincoln, NE the Hampton Inn there had, by far, the most comfortable beds of the trip.

Bad Weather and Boring Locations

March 24 - April 3 Stillwater, OK

Much of the time in Stillwater was spent sitting in the motel room waiting out severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings.

April 4 - 7 Bloomington, IL

This was just a stop on the way to Jackson, MI. I was here for 3 days waiting out the weather. Fortunately that meant I was able to spend a few days with a good friend from Grad School who teaches at the University in Bloomington.

April 8 - 20 Jackson, MI

This was a drama filled stop where one person was fired, one person quit, one new person started and I got to clean up all the messes related to each. Oh yeah, and there was a blizzard in there too.

April 21 - 22 Rockford, IL

This was another stop due to weather enroute to Minnesota.

April 23 - 27 Alexandria, MN

Alexandria is in the middle of nowhere (NW of Minneapolis) and I swear I took more pictures of water than of land.

April 28 - May 8 Elkhart, IN

Do I really need to say anything here?

South Texas

March 20-23


I left Amarillo for Waco,TX with a stop overnight in Abilene on the way due to weather. Waco is just east of Crawford, TX. Fortunately for me "Dubya" wasn't playing at his ranch so I didn't have any TFR issues. I didn't actually do any work here as I was quickly sent up to Oklahoma instead but I did get to do a little sight seeing.

Waco is the birthplace of Dr. Pepper! I took the tour of the museum and got to sample the original recipe which uses cane sugar rather than corn syrup. I did actually taste noticeably better.

I took a day trip down to San Antonio and went through the Alamo and walked the entire length of the Riverwalk. The Riverwalk is an area in downtown San Antonio and it has lots of shops, restaurants and hotels, etc. all along the river. You can take boat tours but it was much more fun to just walk.