Flying and more flying!

Continuing on from my previous post, (which I started when I was on my last overnight and got too tired to finish) I didn't end up doing those Cali flights on Wednesday. See, I'm still trying to figure out how being on call works... Wednesday morning, I was supposed to report for my trip at 7:55am, so I'd gone to bed at 10:30 and had my alarm set for 6:30 so I could get a good 8 hours of sleep before a day of flying. My phone rang at 3:45am. It was good old Crew Support calling, and I answered it (not realizing that I didn't have to, since I was not even on call and was already scheduled for a trip). They said they were changing my schedule because they had someone call in sick, and that I was going to be flying a leg to Salt Lake City, and then either sitting reserve there at the airport, or deadheading back to Tucson to sit ready reserve at the airport here. Oh, and my new report time was 5:30am. Major bummer. They called back a couple minutes later to say that they were going to put me on a 2-day trip, so pack for an overnight. I asked if it was Salem... good guess! I was supposed to have a 2-day trip starting Thursday, also the Salem overnight.

I packed up and met up with Tammy and Andreas at the crew lounge. I'd flown with Tammy before, and had met Andreas (from Sweden) at a domicile lunch/celebration we had a couple weeks ago. We flew to SLC then Salem and got there early in the afternoon. That night I had a dinner date!!! =) Shainlee has been in the States for about a year, and is going to school to be a pilot. She lives in Eugene. When I'd been scheduled for my original trip to Salem, I got ahold of her to see how far away she was. She told me it was about an hour's drive, but she would come up and see me. I called her while I was in SLC to let her know I was coming a day earlier, and she said she had a car and would give me a call when she got off work. She got to my hotel just after 6pm, and we went to Baja Fresh for a muy delicioso dinner! Then back to the hotel to hang out, chat, look at pictures from home, and just catch up!! It was a great blessing to see her. The next day we flew back to SLC, did a round trip to Seattle, then flew back home.

On Friday afternoon I was scheduled to work a round trip to LAX. I was excited to work a flight home! Since I've been on reserve, I have always packed extra every time I fly, even if I'm just scheduled for a round trip, just in case they change up my schedule on me. This time I started to, then decided not to... Getting sick of carrying all this stuff, just to go back and forth. I took something to sleep in, just in case, but nothing else this time. Murphy's Law, right? As soon as we got to LA, Crew Support had sent a message to the cockpit telling the pilots to tell me to call them regarding changes to my schedule for that night. Well, the changes were to add two more days of flying to my schedule! They were going to fly me to Ontario (California) after sitting in LA for 2 1/2 hours, spend the night there, and then start a trip the next morning with two pilots from SLC. Shoot!! Well, Mom to the rescue! I called her up, and she and Maria came and picked me up and brought me home (with a stop at Golden Spoon on the way!!). =) The funnest thing was to call Dad when we pulled in... ask him what he was up to... then walk in while I was on the phone with him and surprise him. =) He called me a jerk, but really I know he was happy to see me. ;-) Mom hooked me up with an old carry-on bag and toiletries, and I grabbed some clothes out of my closet. We hung out for a little bit then Mom and Dad drove me up to Ontario (thanks again!!!!!! You guys are the best!) so I could just sleep at the hotel there and meet up with the guys in the morning, since we had a 5:30am showtime.

After a couple hours of shuteye, I got up, went downstairs, and had some breakfast that the hotel hooked us up with! The pilots were both cool - Marcelo, from Brazil, was the Captain, and Jonathan Walker was the FO. We flew to San Fran, then did a round trip to Palmdale, then to Albuquerque where we spent the night. Oh, the cool thing about that was when I was at home, Mom had called up David and LouBe who live in ABQ! They are friends of ours from church, and moved there pretty recently. They said to call them up when I got in... which I did! LouBe picked me up and showed me around the town. Then we picked up David and they took me out for dinner! So more blessings - to see friends, have a good meal, and be taken care of! The one small bag I had originally brought on the trip with me was starting to rip, and I asked LouBe if she had any way to fix it... super glue... needle and thread... anything... She gave me a new bag instead!!! Talk about blessings upon blessings. =)

The following day we had another super early start (even earlier because of NM being an hour ahead of AZ). It was a pretty easy day though - we flew back to SLC, then I deadheaded home two hours later. After I got back to TUS, I had to hang out on ready reserve for 4 hours... Grrr... The highlight of the afternoon though, was finally being able to get a good look at the Grand Canyon and take pictures of it! Every other time we've flown over it, I'm doing my beverage/snack service and can't fully appreciate it. Even though my roomie Morgan says it's just a big ditch, I think it's gorgeous! Unfortunately the airplane windows were a little dirty for picture taking, but this was better than nothing...

I had the next day off, then flew another 2-day trip with an overnight in San Luis Obispo... awesome hotel! Good crew... My Captain, Jim kept joking about making an announcement that Rachael Ray was back there and going to make a 30-minute meal for them. =) He finally did it! The second day of the two was a long one, and ended with an irate passenger... thankfully I'd never encountered one before her... She was peeved because her bag wouldn't fit into an overhead bin... It went way further than that, but I won't get into it right now... Needless to say, I was glad to get home, and thankful to have the next day off! =)