The Magic of an Ordinary Day

learning to fly

Yeah, I know.  I've done this before.  Almost two years with a fixed-wing program makes me no stranger to flight nursing, but this rotor thing is a whole different animal. 

The first thing I've realized is that on a lear jet, I'm a passenger.  A passenger with a patient, perhaps, but a passenger nonetheless.  When I'm on a helicopter I will be a crew member.

Which means eyes out, help your pilot, check your aircraft before take-off, help manage the personnel in the LZ (landing zone), and in all instances securing the safety of your aircraft over the stability of your patient.  Because dead crew members don't help anybody.  This is stressed over and over at PHI.  Safety.

Tomorrow is night vision goggle day (or night, I should say).  All day of class, then dusk/night training.  Sure beats the hell out of the OB training we had today.

Here's a few photos I've managed to take while here.

Camping trip

We had another great trip to the Jemez mountains last weekend.  Don and Nichole met us up there and we spent some time fishing and relaxing.  Dwayne's birthday was Friday and I got him a new fly fishing rod for his birthday, and he was excited to try it out.  

First of all, the lures that Hannah picked out for Dwayne.  Yes, they are not fly-fishing flies, but she insisted that we get these "lawyers" because they are pretty.  Who could say no?

On to the camping trip...

We just did pull-out car camping up in the Jemez mountains.  Here are some scenes from around the camp site...

On to the fishing!!!

Hannah has her fishing stuff (all in pink, of course)

We did all fly fishing in several different places and the fishing was not as good as it was in June.  The water was really low (the Monsoon season wasn't all that robust this year) so maybe that was it.

It was pretty, though, so making my way up a trout stream was no great sacrifice.

The fish were few, but bigger when we (and by "we" I mean Don) got 'em.

And here's Dwayne using his new fly fishing rod.  The weather was just perfect, by the way.  It's just starting to get a touch chilly at night and as you can see a bit of fall in the air.