A Busy Few Days

The last three days have been a bit busy.

Well, I guess the first day (Tuesday the 2nd, I had the 6 days before that off) wasn't really busy: I just got called 2 hours early (at 0500) to come to work, and got to spend the morning in Flagstaff, even found a new place to hit up for food. Oh yeah, and I picked up Assasin's Creed 2 at Walmart (I got totally hooked on Assasin's Creed on my days off, so I had to get the sequel). Then I napped for most of the day when I got back. Come to think if it, Tuesday was pretty kick ass.

The next morning I got another early call out (at 0530). I noticed I had a work EMail waiting for me on my Blackberry. Apparently the FAA needed to observe one of our check airman while they gave a check ride. And lucky me, I just happened to be in my early grace period, so I was selected. Oh well, part of the job. The rest of the day was a little crazy: We took a patient to Farmington from Chinle (with an additional nurse, it was nice to see a new face onboard who wasn't a patient), but on the return Chinle had become fogged in, so we diverted to Window Rock. After an hour or so on the ground it started to snow and the visibility was starting to drop. Not wanting to get stuck there, we headed to Gallup. Of course, 30 minutes later when we got int he Gallup area, the weather had turned to crap there. After shooting an approach to minimums, we got the plane int he hangar (so the snow wouldn't pile up on it), and went to have lunch. During lunch the weather really shit the bed, so we got stuck in Gallup for a few hours. But that's ok, since there's Walmart and we have a crew quarters there with internet and satellite tv, and a crew van to get around. Finally the weather cleared and we made it back to Chinle. I had planned to go home that night since I didn't have to be on duty in Kayenta till 1800 the next day, but the checkride I now had the next morning meant that plan was scrubbed.

The next morning, after a night of pre-checkride nightmares (I always get them right before a checkride), I got out to the plane, topped it off, and away to SLC we (the check airman and I) went. Shot a couple of practice approaches into Ogden just to make sure all was good, then landed at SLC and waited for the FAA rep to show. When he did, we went through the ground portion, then to the flying (3.9 hours, most of it in Evanston, WY). All went well, I am good for another 6 months, my check airman for another 24.

Afterwords we went to the best damn Mexican restaurant in Salt Lake: the Red Iguana. They had the most awesome chile colorado I've ever had, and what had to be the hottest Serrano peppers in the world. Don't get me wrong, I like hot stuff, and I've eaten roasted Serrano's before. But holy shit this one little pepper, roasted, brought me to tears and nausea. I wish I could have had a drink, as they had some interesting looking ones (Jamaica margarita, pepino cucumber margarita, jalapeno margarita, cherry daiquiri, etc).

Kinda hoping I get another flight to SLC, during the day of course, just so I can hit up Red Iguana again.