Totally Worth It
Life lessons for the past two weeks: persistence pays off; and spontaneousness is one hell of a lot of fun.
Because the bear hunting season hasn't begun quite yet in Kodiak, I've got a whole lot of time in which I'm not flying...at least until the third week of April. So what do I do? Plan a last-minute trip to Denver for some fun and excitement. Now of course, most of you know the hellatious time I had trying to get a flight to Colorado last week. Happily, everything worked out this time.
Showed up in Denver midday Friday, and was greeted by Andrew. Because Brad (the man with the plan, I'm told) was sick, a good deal of time was spent trying to figure out just what we should do. A quick solution was to take the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood, but that only lasts so long. Ultimately, we decided we'd head to a local Japanese restaurant. It provided a couple firsts for me: I've never had sushi before, and I've never had sake before--the good news is that both were excellent. Definitely worth eating/drinking a second time.
Saturday was when things really started to get interesting. Because of the nature of my trip, we were still winging it; and since we decided to save skiing for Sunday, I figured it'd be a good opportunity to do something I've always wanted to do: go get myself dizzy by flying some aerobatics. The initial plan was aerobatics first, then a checkout so I could take Andrew, Tek, and Dire up for a ride...but we all know how well "planning" has gone so far. After strapping on the parachutes and a preflight, my instructor and I jumped into the Super Decathlon and headed skyward. It was my first time, so we stuck with basic aerobatic maneuvers: inverted flight, barrel rolls, aileron rolls, and loops. Was happy to hear the instructor say that my aerobatic flying was "pretty good"--considering I've never done it before. Despite how awesomely fun it was, 25 minutes of it was enough for me. The constant switching between sitting in my seat and hanging from it was starting to get to me. We headed back to the airport and found out that after not being in one for 6 months, I could still land a taildragger...and that there were no instructors left for a check flight. The final decision was that we weren't going to wait for an instructor to show up, so we scrapped the airplane ride idea. I'm still feeling pretty bad about that--and I'm making it a priority to get a check flight out of the way next time I'm in the area. I keep my word, whether or not I actually promised anyone an airplane ride.
Sunday was go-time for skiing, and the snow actually turned out to be pretty good. Most of our time was spent in the terrain parks, but we maneuvered our way through the trees a few times as well. I'm getting much more confident with every jump I hit, and I find myself trying to go for more and more air every time. I'm also finding myself successfully throwing 180s off bigger jumps--ones I wouldn't have even considered at the beginning of the season...now all I have to do is convince everyone else to try them. ;) Anyway, during the last run of the day I was feeling pretty good and decided I'd try to throw a 360. I didn't chicken out at the last instant, but that doesn't mean I landed it--I wound up going somewhere between 220 and 250 degrees and landing on my ass. Oh well, not many people get it on the first try anyway. Headed back and we were met by a pretty good snowstorm, but didn't have any problems. Andrew, Brad, and I finished off the weekend by going out for fish.
I'll skip the details of getting back to Alaska--I'm currently at a friend's place in Anchorage, trying to catch a plane back to Kodiak sometime Tuesday afternoon. Much like the trip in February, I had such a good time I'm getting that "withdrawls" feeling again. One of these days, to everyone's horror, I'll wind up moving to Denver. ;)
But seriously, I had an awesome time...thanks again to the crew in CO.