Monday, December 26, 2011

26 December 2011

Today I go SNA SLC ORD DTW.  I'm sitting in the crew lounge in SLC because I have a 3.5 hour sit until we leave for ORD, ugh.  Waste of time.

Ran into a buddy from the Marines who I haven't seen since I got out; Steve "Scarey" Carey.  He was a good, funny guy.  He's now an A320 captain flying out of SLC.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

25 December 2011

We left Aruba at 13.40 yesterday afternoon.  It was a gorgeous day there; in the '80's with typical sea breezes.  Aruba is very close to Venezuala, perhaps 20 miles or so, and actually a little bit further south than the northernmost point in South America.  It is a small island that was originally used to raise horses to be used on the larger and more habitable island of Curacao.  Aruba has no natural water so literally all of its water comes from a giant desalination plant.  It is not a very picturesque place; I imagine most of its beauty is hidden beneath the surface of the ocean.  It's warm and sunny in winter though!

We flew north over the Domincan Republic and then up the Bahamas, touching land in the U. S. at Wilmington, NC.  The Dominican Republic has some very rugged mountains reaching up to 10,200 feet, which kind of surprised me.  I didn't realize they were that high.  The island was mostly clear when we flew over, so we had a great view of the varied terrain from ocean beaches to mountains in the Dominican Republic.  Further to the west and part of the same island is Haiti; it looks the same from the air, but of course is much different than the Dominican Republic politically and economically.

We landed to a nice day in New York City a little earlier than scheduled which is nice because it happens so little at La Guardia. 

Today we will leave shortly after 1400 for MSP and then fly on to SNA.  Too bad we won't be there long enough to see mom and dad.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

20 December 2011

Matt home yesterday.  Yay!!  He will be here for 10 days or so, although I wont' see much of him because I'll be working for several of those days.  We are going to do a CCW class together on the 27th of December. 

Reading a couple of interesting books.  Van Gogh: The life and Depression: A Stubborn Darkness.  Both of them are fascinating and well worth reading. 

Hopefully off to hit the gun range with Matt today.