Santa Clarita

Saturday, October 26, was the start of a much needed vacation.  I was going to go to Santa Clarita to visit some relatives, and just relax.  I decided to take the long, scenic route, and I was glad I did.  I hopped onto the 1100 flight to Seattle, and then connected down to Portland.  I was treated to some amazing views of the Cascade volcanoes.

                        (Mt. St. Helens, with Mt. Adams in the background)

                       (Mt. St. Helens, looking at the north side)
I arrived in Portland, and then my final flight was on the "Alaska" side of the airline.  I was connecting to Los Angeles.  That flight was pretty boring, and as soon as I got to the airport, I took the Flyaway bus to Van Nuys.  From there, I waited for my Aunt and Uncle to come and pick me up, and then go back to there place in Santa Clarita.  But not without a stop for dinner at In & Out. :)

The next day was pretty relaxed.  We went to church, and then spent the afternoon at a family's house.  They were celebrating that my Uncle David was approved for a pastoring job in Indiana.  They will be moving later this year.

The next morning when my cousins went to school, Uncle David and I went down to the Simi Valley to visit the Ronald Reagan library.  I had been there when I was a kid, but didn't remember much.  And they had added more exhibits since then.  The museum did an excellent job of portraying his life, and legacy.

                               (Air Force One)

                                  (Marine One)
After we finished the museum, we continued on to Ventura, where we had some pretty good fish and chips for lunch.  We walked along part of the pier, and went to the National Park Visitor Center for the Channel Islands.  They played a great film on all the islands.  I definitely want to return and go onto one of the islands at some point.

We drove back to Santa Clarita, and then later all my cousins and Aunt and I went to an event where they had scarecrow contests, and you could buy pumpkins.  There were some good ones, but I think my favorite was a duck dynasty one.

The next day, I just helped my Uncle pack up some things, and then later that night we all carved pumpkins.  I helped my little cousin Clayton carve his.  He wanted a star wars storm trooper theme.  It seemed that he picked the most difficult design out of everyone's.

The next morning I was up bright and early.  Rather than flying out of LAX again, my uncle took me to Burbank.  The flight was wide open so I had no problem getting to Seattle, and then back to Boise from there. :)

San Francisco

Bright and early on the morning of September 2, I was up to catch the Horizon PDX flight.  I met up with my old college friend, Ivan.  He had moved to Corvallis, just south of Portland, to go to graduate school.  So he caught a bus up to the airport, and we met up to fly together to San Francisco.

We bought tickets to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to downtown San Francisco.  We emerged from the underground tunnel to find ourselves around tall buildings, and electric cables running everywhere that powered the trolleys.  We walked down to one of the first piers, and got some good views of the Bay Bridge that crosses over into Oakland.

There was also an old river boat that appeared to be turned into a restaurant, next to the pier.

We continued walking along the waterfront, until we reached Pier 39.  Pier 39 is the most famous one, with lots of restaurants and shops.  And the famous group of seal lions that has decided to stay.

By that point we were getting pretty hungry.  A friend from work told me I had to go eat at In & Out.  I had never been there, so we found it.  I have to say, the fries were amazing and the burger was pretty good too.  After that, we headed back to the pier.  I had seen what appeared to be a submarine on display.  I was right.  It was the U.S.S. Pampanito.  It served in the Pacific during WWII.  I would have loved to get a tour of the inside, but I didn't want to pay the money.

Behind the submarine was a Liberty ship, also used in WWII.  This particular one, Jeremiah O'Brien. It participated in the landing at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.

After that, we decided it was time to go get up close and personal with the Golden Gate Bridge.  We walked to a bus stop and took a couple buses.  The second one dropped us off near the bridge.

For a while it was foggy, and the top of the bridge became obscured.  But the wind cleared it out.  We hiked down to the base of the bridge and went inside an old fort, called Fort Point, built during the Civil War, to help protect San Francisco Bay.  A lighthouse was even built; one of many built along the entire California coast.

It was very windy, but we went up to the top of Fort Point.  It was a gorgeous view of the Bay to the east, and the opening to the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the bridge above you.

The fort closed at 5.  We sat around at the base of the bridge for a while, resting, and enjoying the cool breeze.  Finally we hauled our butts back up tot he top, and walked out a ways onto the bridge.

After that we waited for the bus to take us back to a connection point with BART, and we rode back to the airport.  We wanted to print our boarding passes for the morning, and sleep behind security.  However we weren't allowed to, so we struggled to find a place to sleep, and eat.  After some research we found some restaurants in the International Terminal.  One of them was a grill, which we went to.  Then we went to Terminal 2 and found an area with some large flat cushioned benches and chairs.  We we set up "camp" and went in and out of sleep until 5 am when we got on our flight back to Portland.  I parted ways with Ivan, and then waited to fly back to Boise.

Overall it was a good trip, even though I was already exhausted from work.  :)

Return To Kentucky

I was excited to finally be returning to Kentucky, after more than a year since I moved away.  On the evening of July 15 I was able to get a seat on a Horizon flight to Seattle.  From there, I was flying U.S. Airways.  It took a while to make my way to the A terminal, but I was able to get a seat on the "red-eye" flight out to Charlotte, NC.  There were plenty of open seats and I had no problem getting on board.  I arrived in Charlotte bright and early, and I was able to catch the first morning flight to Lexington, KY.  It too was wide open and I had no problem getting a seat.

Brandon was picking me up in Lexington, so I had to wait a bit.  He got out of class late, but finally, around noon, he showed up and took me back to his place in Richmond.  We went to Arby's for lunch, and then just hung around his place until he had some friends come over in the evening.  We grilled burgers, talked, and watched some funny videos the whole time.  After even left, Sarah went to bed and Brandon and I stayed up watching a Halo movie until I fell asleep.

The next morning Brandon and I went down to Berea and visited our old friends at the Grounds Crew.  Unfortunately the boss, Matt, wasn't there, but we saw some of the other guys we worked with.  It was a surprise for them to see us.  After that Brandon and I hung out with Ben and Critter for a while.  After that, Brandon left and I heard that Brittany (who I worked with at the Creation Museum) was in town.  So I got to see her, and then I went down to Jacob and Carla's apartment.  I was staying the night with them, and I was taking them and Jacob's sister, Lydia, out for dinner.  We went to a pretty good pizza place in town.

Afterwards Ben and Critter joined Lydia and I.  We played basketball for a while, and I got my butt kicked.  Then the four of us went to Walmart.  Lydia and I had agreed we would have an Ale 8 date, and try to find some Twinkies.  But we only got the Ale 8.  We sat out in the field watching fireflies and drinking the delicious Ale 8, until Lydia brought me back over to Jacob's.  We talked for a while, until Jacob and Carla got back from a walk.

Thursday morning I was up early, and got a ride up to campus where I was meeting Jon to go caving.  It was going to be an awesome day!  Jon and I were going to go do Sinks of the Roundstone Pit in the morning.  It's a 120 foot vertical shaft, with a small amount of cave extending beyond.  After that, Brandon and Critter, and my old caving friend Chris were going to meet us and we were going to do some exploring in Mullins Spring Cave.

Jon and I hiked up to the pit entrance, and worked on rigging the rope, and putting on all our rope gear.

I descended the pit first.  It was nerve-wracking at first, but once I was on my way down it was so much fun.

Once Jon descended he led me as far as you could go through the cave.  There was a little bit of free climbing down, and then some winding passage carved out by the water.  When we reached the end we turned around, and rested at the bottom of the pit.  Then I ascended first.  It wasn't too bad of a workout going the 120 feet up.  You had to push the fear from your mind thinking that your life depended on a small rope.

We went back to the gas station near the Interstate exit and waited for Brandon and Critter.  When they arrived we made the drive to Mullins Spring Cave.

The "plan" was to go explore the dry areas of the cave, and then Chris thought he remembered the really deep water connection passage to get to the main part of the cave.  However, as soon as we entered Chris led Brandon and Critter off to another part of the cave.  Jon followed me.  We explored some passages I knew, and even found others.  Jon and I climbed down to a  pit that had a waterfall, I had always believed a small passage shooting off from it ended.  However, we climbed up the wall and through a little hole we found it went.  Jon remembered it being connected to the "Violation entrance" (another connection made to the Mullins spring cave system).  It was nice figuring this out.

After a while we backtracked and tried to find the others.  We eventually did. They had spent a lot of time in the water.  They took us back to a dome and waterfall they had found, and then I found a small hole that I challenged people to squeeze through.  Jon and I tried, and both made it.  Brandon couldn't fit.

At this point, we were tired and cold, so we decided to head out... The very wet entrance, of course.  It was deep, and cold.

We changed, parted ways, and I went with Brandon back up to Richmond.  We hung out and played games until I went to bed.  It was a great day of caving.

The next day Brandon took me to the Lexington Airport.  A flight was cancelled, and things went downhill.  So I spent $200 and bought the last seat on a Lexington to Charlotte flight, and then Charlotte to Atlanta.  I had to spend a long cold night in Atlanta, before I used (thankfully I had them) my credits with Southwest Airlines to buy tickets to go to Denver, and then back to Boise.  Next time I'll be a little more careful about my planning for flying standby.  It didn't help I wasn't eligible for some of the airlines to get passes yet.

But overall it was a great, exhausting, trip back to Kentucky.  I loved every day of it and I can't wait to go back. :)

Anchorage, AK

I had always dreamed of going to Alaska, but I never thought it would happen.  But when I started the job with the airline I knew that dream would become a reality.  And so it finally did: My first trip to Alaska.  It would only be for a day or so, but I had the trip packed full of things to do.

Tuesday, June 11, I had more training at work.  But when I was done I met my sisters Josie and Emily behind security and we boarded an 8:20 flight to Portland, Oregon.  We got a pretty neat view of Mt. Hood, shrouded by clouds as we prepared to land.

We had a little while to sit in Portland until we boarded our flight to Anchorage.  The sun had set, and it was completely dark when we boarded.  However after a while we could see the sun's glow on the horizon, and by the time we reached Alaska it was pretty bright.  It wasn't something I was used to.  We landed at 1:15, and it was light out.

After we landed, and found our way outside the airport I tried calling the Motel 6 shuttle.  However I couldn't make any phone calls.  It was strange, but I could send text messages.  We did get lucky, though.  Somebody else had called the shuttle and I happened to see it.  So we got a ride, and got checked into our room at Motel 6.  It took a while to get to sleep, despite being tired, because of the sunlight.  But sleep did finally come.

In the morning we were up by 8:00 and hungry.  So we decided to order from a restaurant that delivered.  I settled on a reindeer sausage omelet and pancakes, Emily got a breakfast sandwich and hash browns, and Josie got a cheese omelet with fries and pancakes.

After stuffing ourselves we packed up and checked out of our motel room.  Then we set out on foot. We walked along the road until we came to the Chester Creek Trail.  I knew that connected with the Tony Knowles Coast Trail, and that was where we were headed.  It was very nice weather; sunny, but not too hot and a cool breeze was refreshing.  It was very beautiful scenery.

When we hit the coastal trail, we went south on it, towards Earthquake Park.  It was pretty cool seeing the wide open tidal mud flats, and the mountains across Cook Inlet.  The only thing I wasn't prepared for were the mosquitoes.

(The big "scar" is from the '64 earthquake.  Park of the mountainside tore off and fell into the ocean.)

We continued on, past Earthquake Park up to an overlook where you could see across Cook Inlet.  You could barely see Mt. McKinley against the horizon, and at the other end was Anchorage.

Then we began hoofing it back through town.  We eventually saw a McDonalds far off in the distance and decided it would be a good place to rest up.  We got some smoothies, refilled our waters, and then headed off into downtown.  Emily had seen an advertisement on T.V. for a Polar Bear Gift Shop.  It was supposed to have really good deals on souvenirs and gifts.

The T.V. was right.  There were two stores, and they had a lot of cool gifts at really good prices.  So I got a few key chains and postcards for people.  And I even grabbed a neat shot glass. After that we just wandered around downtown for a while, and tried to find some grills to eat at.  But I couldn't bring my sisters into any of them as they had attached bars.

We decided to call it quits, and catch our bus back to the airport.  We were pretty tired.  So the rest of the trip consisted of sitting at the airport half asleep, and looking out the windows and wondering why it was still light out at 1:00 am.  We caught our plane to Seattle, and then  back to Boise.  It was a great first trip, and next time I definitely plan on renting a car and getting some mobility to see more sites!  I would love to go down south to Seward.

Day Trip To Seattle, WA

My first flight using my benefits was a simple day trip to Seattle, Washington.  It was my first time non-rev'ing and I wasn't very ambitious.  I took RaeAnne along with me, using a couple companion passes.  The plan was to fly to Seattle, and use public transportation to go see the Space Needle, and then fly back to Boise.

The flight to Seattle was fairly uneventful, except the view of four Cascade Volcanoes: Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and the most spectacular, Mt. Rainier.  I got some gorgeous pictures of it.

As soon as we landed in Seattle we went through security and left the terminal.  Outside was part of Seattle's public transportation system.  They had a light rail system running from the terminal all the way to downtown Seattle.  For an all day ticket it cost us $5.  So we took the train to downtown, and then bought a round trip ticket on the old mono-rail.  I learned later the mono-rail was built during the year Seattle hosted the World's Fair.  The same year the Space Needle was built.

The mono-rail took us all the way to the Space Needle.  It was fun seeing it was I had never been up close to it before.

We bought tickets to take an elevator ride up to the top, and walk around on the observation deck.

We simply took the same route back to the airport, and were able to get on board the next flight out to Boise.