Sun's Out Buns Out

You have been warned. 

Sometimes in life you have to get naked. Bare it all and face the world without any kind of buffer. Sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally. Whether it's standing up for something you believe in or putting yourself out there after a bad relationship, or just wanting to stand on the rim of one of the seven wonders of the world in nothing but your birthday suit. "Why that last one?" you ask. Why?Because it's there! Because I exist! Because sometimes you gotta strip down, face the world and say "This is me! This is what I believe! Do your worst because though I may falter I will always persevere!" 

It is important to know yourself and to know what you believe in. That can be difficult. So many times we pick sides and adopt all the beliefs that come with it. Red ties and blue ties. Black and white. Cats and dogs. That's life, one choice after another. It's exhausting! It is probable why people just pick a side and adopt the entire creed, because that's easy. Making an informed decision about every little thing takes time, it means you might upset people, it means you have to stand up for something you believe in even when everyone else thinks you're wrong. It means you have to bare yourself to criticism, to ridicule and maybe more. But we all came in to this world naked and ignorant, a blank slate. From the day we are born we strive to become less ignorant through our experience because the best teacher is experience. When we are toddlers our parents say "don't touch the stove, it will burn you" this is second hand information. The real lesson is learned when we touch the stove and we have to suffer, through that experience we gain knowledge. 

What do I know? I only know what my brain tells me. I can only know for certain what I have personally experienced, everything else is second hand information subject to scrutiny. So why stand naked in front of the Grand Canyon? Because I wanted the experience, I wanted to know how it felt to see something amazing without any barriers. What did I gain from that experience? Well it gave me the inspiration to write this rant. It helped me see myself, to understand in that moment the only tools I have to make my way in this world are my mind and my will.

Perhaps you think I am crazy, coming up with all of this after only a few minutes standing bare assed in front of a big hole in the ground. But it was something I had never done before. It was something I wanted to do, so I did it. I gained the experience of doing something I was afraid of doing and through that I learned more about myself. So maybe I am some lunatic who likes to get naked at the Grand Canyon, maybe this entire rant will fall on deaf ears, maybe I'll even be criticized for it. But that is ok, because I know who I am and I like what I see.

Snowizona?

I know what you are all thinking... "Snow in Arizona? That can't be right!" But believe you me, it snows in Arizona and I have the pictures to prove it!

There is also fog, this is looking down into the canyon from the rim. 

A visitors center on the Rim.

A real photographer at work.

This is Gary Snowman.

The Grand Canyon

Stats of 2016

I know that a lot of people have not enjoyed 2016, but I had a quite a year! There were a couple spontaneous road trips, on motorcycles and in the truck, learning new skills and gaining new employment, making new friends and reuniting with old and generally having a pretty great time along the way. So here we go, a look back to 2016...

In 2016 I traveled...
15,984 miles in total between one truck and two motorcycles
12,273 miles driven in the BGT (Big Green Truck)
3,604 miles with Olive my Triumph motorcycle (including one fantastic road trip to arches)
107 miles on my old bike Debbie before I sold her to a good friend, I know she's in good hands
Countless miles in the buses of Park City Transit

In 2016 I flew...
5 different kinds of aircraft, learning how to fly a tailwheel aircraft and a twin otter
277 hours in various conditions and did 247 landings (some on grass strips)
to 5 different states and around 15 airports I had never been to
and got paid for it for the first time!

In 2016 I lived...
in Utah, Nevada and Arizona
in 4 different houses
in the coolest attic room ever in my best buds house
in my truck only occasionally

In 2016 I...
read 54 books some old, some new
pooped 380 times averaging just over 1 a day
weighed at most 204 and least 178
almost made it to the bottom of Meadows Hot Spring
a pretty great year!

So Happy New Year to you and yours!

Overall, not a bad year.

Ghosts of Airlines Past

I have never considered myself a history buff, but recently I was able to get a glimpse into the past of Scenic Airlines in the form of an abandoned hangar. Located a handful of miles down a dirt road, not far from Grand Canyon Airport lies the remnants of Scenic Airways. Original built in 1927 for the purpose of showing off the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, this old hangar was the gateway to thousands of people in to one of the most visited areas in the American west. For more on the history of this place check out Grand Canyon Airlines History. 

I decided that I was going to check this place out when a coworker told me about it, I had the day off and it seemed like a nice way to spend an hour or two. So I jumped in the truck and headed out. Now, I am not one to scare easily but there is something eerie about being in an abandoned place by your lonesome. There is a certain amount of quiet that seems to quiet until the wind kicks an old door closed and you jump out of your skin! Not that that happened to me of course... Despite any reservations about walking around an old, rusty, quiet hangar I walked all around taking in as much as I could of these standing echoes. From what I could tell its most frequent visitors these days were horses and cows that live in the surrounding fields. It was hard to tell where the runway had been, but I assumed it was the flat grassy area just out in front of the hangar. Anyways, here are the pictures I took!

Truck for scale.

A view from the old runway.

The back half of the hangar.

An old hangar makes for a nice haven for horses.

The original!

I'll Meet You at the Monuments

As many of you know, I have had a number of different jobs over the years. I have met some interesting characters, well traveled folks of all different walks of life, but many of them seem to have something in common. A weirdness (that I probably share with them) to reach out when we cross paths in strange situations. I know it happens to pilots all the time, talking about what aircraft we have flown, what airports we have flown in to and out of, close calls and near misses that gave you a new lease on life.
A few days ago I had the pleasure of landing at Monument Valley airport, at just 42 feet wide, landing towards a cliff wall that rises hundreds of feet in front of you, it doesn't leave much room for error. With such an interesting set of obstacles, the airport doesn't get a lot of use but on the day we landed there were around 15 aircraft parked at the small field! Folks from all across the country were there, some had started out in Ft. Lauderdale, others from South Dakota, and one nice couple who had flown up from Phoenix for the day. But what was really amazing is that all the people were excited to see one more airplane join the group. As I walked around looking at the different planes, every one of the pilots were excited to tell me about where they came from, where they were going, how did I like flying the Twin Otter and how long I had been flying. It was like an impromptu community had sprung up in the desert and I was the newest resident. It is a pretty cool feeling to feel like you fit in somewhere you've never been before.
After some of them took a tour of our airplane, after we had exchanged stories about our flight experience, after talking about where we were and where we wanted to go in life, after a round of handshakes and "nice to meet yous" they jumped in their planes and flew away. Just like that our little community had disbanded and we were a pair of pilots waiting for our passengers to show up to a little strip of asphalt in the middle of the desert.

Some days the cloud are below you.

Sometime you just have to reflect.

And every once in a while you get a rainbow!

At Monument Valley, a large cliff wall is only a couple hundred feet behind me.

A couple Bearhawks!

A 4-legged passenger!

A real beauty.

These two came all the way from Florida!

Nothing Quite Like a Two Lane

Get ready for some pictures not from an airplane! Ok ok, it's only two pictures but these pictures were captured in a moment of spontaneity and uninhibited happiness. I was able to take a quick trip to Phoenix this last weekend and I decided to take a road less traveled to get there. In between Valle Arizona and Flagstaff sits US-180, a winding, twisting two-lane highway in central Arizona that climbs up to over 8,000 feet while careening through field and forest. There is a certain skin prickling calm that comes over me when I'm on a road that is truly fun to drive. It's a feeling I haven't felt in some time, but with the radio turned up loud, no cell service and a PB&J sandwich in the shotgun seat, I found myself in a state of driving euphoria. As the forests whipped by I jokingly thought to myself that I was on the lookout for that damn Sasquatch, lurking just out of sight. I saw a herd of elk, lazily grazing next to the road as the sun set low on the horizon. A sunset filled with blues and purples, a sunset that only the American Southwest could create. (The picture doesn't do it any justice) With the music turned up loud, singing so loud I risked losing my voice, I relished every turn, bump and new view the road had to offer me. Once the sun had finally set and I had turned the music back to a reasonable volume, I was aglow with the joy of driving, a joy I didn't know I had missed until I was reminded by the lonely US-180.

The Lonesome Road.

It was better in person.

More Pictures from an Airplane

Once again, I've let far too much time elapse between posts. So here we go again, hopefully I can be better about posting more regularly. If you don't like pictures from airplanes, you probably won't enjoy the next few posts...

I've been fortunate enough to land a job (with a little help from my friends and family) flying tours over the Grand Canyon. As cool as it is looking at a big hole in the ground, I've been able to fly all around the American Southwest and recently we did a tour over Lake Powell extending all the way out to Monument Valley. The desert is a very strange place, but seeing the desert in relation to Lake Powell is just downright awkward. All that water lapping up against towering rock walls just seems wrong. I don't know how better to describe it... it is just strange.

Sometimes it gets a little rainy.

But most of the time it's sunny.

And here is the famous Horseshoe Bend

Confirmed water on Mars... jk it's Lake Powell.

A little green in the middle of the desert.

This job doesn't suck.

In fact I might call it a Monumental success!

Ok, that was a terrible pun.

It's actually Monument Valley.

And finally a puppy pilot.