Settling Down

And so another cross-country road trip is done. I don't like to fly on the airlines so I drive up to Brewster, Washington every year. There is no direct, diagonal route from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific Northwest; you “stair-step” your way up or down. It's always 3,000 miles.

This year, I left Brewster on Monday. Heading west, in the exact opposite intended direction, I went over to the coast, to Olympia, Washington to see my good friend Brandon who flies for a company there. (My friend Mikey also flies for the same outfit, but he was away on a job and so I didn't get to see him.) After hanging out and having a great time with Brandon (as always), I left Olympia on Tuesday morning and made it back to Florida on Friday night. Google Maps says it was 3,182 miles.

Brandon, who is from New Jersey and often works on the west coast likes to do these marathon cross-countries in which he doesn't stop. He goes like crazy. When he gets tired, he sleeps in his pickup truck in a rest area. I can't do that. I'm a wuss. I need a bed to sleep in for at least a couple of hours and the ability to take a shower. I hate being road-grungy. I can usually find a hotel near the Interstate for around $60.00 per night, which is reasonable, I think. I pick the cheap ones that offer free breakfast so I can grab something to eat before I head out.

Unlike some of my previous trips, this one was uneventful. The venerable 1998 Buick crew-car that I drive back and forth performed flawlessly for 210,000 miles. However, I don't think she's got another trip in her. The transmission was starting to act up – nothing serious, just the very occasional slipping when accellerating from a dead stop, and also some stuttering when downshifting on the highway. Signs of impending doom. To be honest, the car is not worth fixing. So I'll sell her and buy some other piece of crap with somebody else's unknown problems. That'll make me feel better on a 3,000 mile trip!

As fun as my “summer job” up in Washington is, it's always good to be home. And yeah, for better or for worse, Pensacola, Florida is my home. My boss would like me to move up to Washington permanently, but I don't think that's going to happen.

In fact, my days in Washington may be over. There are big changes happening at the company I work for, and if everything goes as planned they won't have a need for ol' Bob next summer. The boss promised me a position anyway. But seriously, why would you pay someone to do something when you can handle that task in-house? Especially as much as they pay me. It doesn't make sense.

If I'm being honest, I'm looking forward to having next summer off from flying. Yeah, I still have to work – it's not like I'll be on vacation. But for the time being at least, I'm going to settle down and stay in one place for a while. 

End Of Season Blues

When I tell people that I work in the desert-y part of Washington State they look at me like I'm crazy and with a puzzled expression go, “Whaaaat?” I think most people assume that all of Washington is dreary and rainy like Seattle, or mountainous like St. Helens and Rainier. 

But, umm, no. The Cascade Mountains block most of the weather from the coast.  Out here between the Cascades immediately to our west and Spokane to the east, there's 150-miles of flat dirt and sagebrush. If not for the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers, nothing would grow here. And stuff only grows along those rivers. Otherwise, you'd be forgiven if you thought you were in Arizona or New Mexico, without all the cactus but with more Mexicans.

So it's dry here, okay? In fact, we haven't had any rain in Brewster since June 8^th. Oh, it's sprinkled occasionally, but no actual rain days. And none to speak of in the forecast. Because of the lack of rain, we didn't do much flying at all during the cherry-growing season.  It was boring with a capital "B."

The customer I was assigned to rents two helicopters from us. One of them only flew five hours and the other one (mine) did not fly at all. This is a contract that can generate up to 100 hours per ship per season for us. So five hours was basically nothing.

I normally hang around after the season is over. I help in the demobilization of all of the helicopters, RV's, fuel trailers, crew houses and such. Then I assist in washing the ships, taking their rotor blades off and then putting them away until next year. Unlike most every other helicopter operator in the world, we only use ours for about two months out of the year.

My boss also does cropdusting. Last year, we picked up a contract to apply a nutrient called boron to 8,000 acres of orchards. The ground is very boron-deficient up here. I played “loader-boy” which is not a highly sought-after position in aviation. It involves a lot of things that go into keeping the spray ship working. There's a lot of cleaning involved.  And a lot of climbing...climbing up and down ladders to load the chute, and up and down on the airplane. It's not hard “work” per se, but it's definitely a young man's game. And I am not one of them any more.

The customer was late delivering the boron to us, so we didn't even start spraying until late October. I ended up staying until the first week of December, which was too late for this southern gentleman. It was fuckin' cold, pardon my French. I won't make the same mistake this year.  The good news is that the we only do boron every two years, and this ain't one of them.

I promised myself that I'd leave here “around” my 62^nd birthday, which was back on September 11^th of all dates. Well that came and went as the boss and I were on a week-long road trip to Little Rock, Arkansas to pick up some airplane parts. Fortunately there is not much left to do.  I've been wasting my time and my boss's money.  My new plan was to be out of here by Halloween. Thankfully, it looks like I'll be gone sooner than that. 

I'd like to say that I'm sad to see my time up here end. But frankly, I've got those end-of-season blues.  Just like every time each year, I'm eager to get home to Florida.