Trip Summary

A quick summary of the trip - (more to help me keep it straight :)

Nov 24-Nov 27:
Mileage: 303 mi (5 hrs) + a 3 hr flight for me
Ending Location: Austin, TX
Activity: Exploring

Nov 27-Dec 2:
Mileage: 303 mi (5 hrs)
Ending Location: Wichita Falls, TX
Activity: Packing, school and graduation

Dec 2:
Mileage: 509 mi (8 hrs according to google + 2 for horrendous snow storm)
Ending location: Albuquerque, NM
Activity: Cadillac Ranch (Amarillo)

Dec 3:
Activity: National Museum of Science and History (Alb, NM)
Mileage: 322 mi (5 hrs)
Ending location: Flagstaff, AZ

Dec 4:
Activity: Grand Canyon
Mileage: 150 mi (3 1/2 hr-ish loop)
Ending location: Flagstaff, AZ

Dec 5:
Activity: Sedona
Mileage: 90 mi (2 hr loop)
Ending location: Flagstaff, AZ

Dec 6:
Mileage: 253 mi (4 hrs) + another hour looking for a car wash :)
Ending location: Las Vegas, NV
Activity: Hoover Dam, Vegas Strip

Dec 7:
Activity: Vegas strip (and NOT being in the car! yay!)

Dec 8:
Mileage: 261 mi (4 hrs)
Ending Location: Disneyland, CA
Activity: Disney

Dec 9:
Activity: Disney

Dec 10:
Mileage: 36 mi (40 min)
Ending location: San Clemente, CA
Activity: Disney, sunset over the ocean and dinner with Proppers

Dec 11:
Mileage: 453 mi (7 1/2 hrs + some time for not paying attention to the GPS)
Ending location: San Rafael, CA
Activity: Meeting baby Eleanor

Dec 12:
Activity: Hanging out with Ben, Eileen and Eleanor

Dec 13:
Mileage: 566 mi (a very long 9 1/2 hrs)
Ending location: Albany, OR
Activity: Dinner with Jenna, Kyle and Payton

Dec 14:
Mileage: 49 mi (1 hr)
Ending location: McMinnville, OR
Activity: Evergreen Air and Space Museum, wine tasting

Dec 15:
Mileage: 39 mi (1 hr)
Ending location: Portland, OR
Activity: Explore, beer tasting

Dec 16:
Mileage: 78 mi (1 1/2 hr)
Ending location: Mt Hood, OR
Activity: Wedding madness and rehearsal dinner

Dec 17:
Activity: Eric & Laura's wedding

Dec 18:
Mileage: 224 mi (3 1/2 hrs) to Auburn + 75 mi ( 1 hr 20 min) to Kingston
Ending location: HOME
Activity: Dinner and HOME

According to Google: 3,131 mi (2 days, 6 hrs drive time) plus all the driving around lost, looking for food, etc. Add a few toll roads, a sketchy ferry in Oregon, a super bad snow storm and so roadside adventure and that about s

Graduation Day

So here's the deal on the vacation blog. It was a really long trip with many highlights. So, there will be multiple blogs. Gotta keep you guys in suspense :)

December 2nd - Graduation Day!

Even though I arrived in Texas on Thanksgiving we couldn't officially begin our vacation until Chris finished Tech School. The night before graduation was spent loading the car and packing (and my final Texan steak) with much anticipation of leaving the "beautiful" state of Texas. We were up Friday and off to the hangar for the graduation ceremony. Good thing about the military - they keep things to the point. An hour later we were on the road with the car pointed West. Finally.

Chris graduated with honors as A C-17 Electrical & Environmental Systems Mechanic. (When people ask me I say he fixes stuff on the big cargo planes) He still has training to do at McChord but now has his fancy maintainer badge on his uniform. Needless to say, I was a very proud Air Force Wife that day. So the disclaimer on these photos (all the vacation photos).... the new camera we got... sucks. So, these are kinda blurry, too dark, too light, whatever - but it gets the point across (I'm only going to complain once Chris). The one of me pinning Chris' badge on is particularly bad, I made a bad "can you take our picture?" selection. One of Chris' buddies had a nice camera and was going to share those photos with us, which I will pass on to you guys.

Class photo

Retired Thunderbird jet

I got to kiss him while he stood at attention.

There he is! SSgt Walker!

Proud wife :)

F15 cockpit - I learned a very important lesson that day as to why fighter pilots don't where dresses.

One last picture before we hit the open road!

I also took a video of Chris getting his coin for graduating with honors from the training Commander, BUT see above sentence about the crappy camera for why there is very little audio. Huff.

Next stop - Albuquerque

Texan Thanksgiving

As you all know, this year for Thanksgiving we did things a bit differently - gave thanks Texan style.

I was sad to be away from my family and home on my favorite holiday of the year, but I couldn't bear to leave Chris in Texas all alone. So, early Thanksgiving morning (thanks for the ride Dad) I jumped a plane, non-stop to Dallas where my Airman was waiting with open arms. As if to keep things in perspective, the plane had a handful of in-uniform soldiers, en route to deploy to Afghanistan. Very sad and somber on Thanksgiving morning...I'm lucky enough to have mine domestic and safe!

The flight was easy, quick (seemed like forever though) and full. We arrived in Dallas 35 min early, even though I was sitting mid-plane I think I was the fastest to baggage claim. At the DFW airport the doors to the baggage claim are big windowed revolving doors. I got stuck in the door behind a family going a snails pace when I could SEE Chris on the other side. Torture, which he thought was funny...

After my giant bag was claimed we jumped in the car to sniff out some post-flight snacks and found a wonderful taco bar. Thanksgiving tacos! We fueled up on tacos and holiday coffee treats from Starbucks next door and hit the road to Austin.

The three hour drive to Austin just cemented the fact that Texas is a strange, backwards place. Luckily, Austin was set to prove that all wrong. Austin is a wonderful little (Tacoma sized) urban oasis. Self-proclaimed as the "music capital of the world" and home of the University of Texas (go Longhorns!) we were in for a fun weekend. After settling into our hotel (a killer steal, on the riverfront - plus an complimentary upgrade to a river view room!) we set out on foot in search of a Thanksgiving dinner. Chris was getting antsy at the thought of no T-day turkey, and the thought of no pumpkin pie was really an urgent concern of mine. Thanks to an article Kyanne sent us, we found a wonderful Thanksgiving buffet at a bar nearby. We were behind the Thanksgiving crowd, so the place was empty. We ordered up a bottle of wine, grabbed our plates and dug in. The buffet was plentiful, a room full of appetizers, every traditional turkey day dish and a table full of desserts. Heaven. The food was actually amazingly delicious. The owner of the place came over to chat with us and explained they are all family recipes, he entertained us with stories of the legendary family jello mold (Texan thing?) and his mom's killer stuffing. Upon finding out we were from out of town he offered to pack us a box of leftovers for the hotel room (we politely declined, there was plenty of eating to be done in Austin) and poured us some terrific dessert wine on the house. We wrapped the dinner up watching the University of Texas and Texas A&M football game before waddling out of there.

yum.

To let our dinner settle we wandered the streets of Austin to check out the town. Austin's 6th street is legendary for having over 70 live music venues, even though it was Thanksgiving night you could hear loud music pouring out of every bar. We both agreed we were too full and tired to partake and headed back to the hotel like old people.

The next morning started with a traditional French crepe breakfast. Texans sure like to eat, and Austin knows how to do it right. There was an overwhelming number of eclectic restaurants to choose from. We certainly did not go hungry that weekend. We went out wandering again. The guy from the tourism desk said the capital and university were too far away to walk too... ha! We had some calorie burning to do from the dinner the night before so we strapped on the walking shoes and out we went! I am still in awe of how rah-rah-Texas people are around here. The Texas lonestar, flag, longhorn - whatever, is slapped on everything here. You don't see the Washington state flag adorning every overpass, sidewalk, building or truck.

A Texas walkway, why not?

We made our way up to the Capitol building. Very cool with lots of history, apparently Texas was a very volatile place for awhile. Crazy thing we learned, Texas (once the Republic of Texas) is the only state in the US with a clause in it's constitution allowing it to withdraw from the union and become an independent nation. I'm surprised they haven't pushed the red button yet...

 Texas capitol building

 Firefighter monument - for you Scott!

 I think it's older than me...

 Really cool underground plaza

Gi-normous Texas star

We figured since we were there, we should check out the University of Texas campus. We took a nice long walk through campus and stopped by the UT bookstore. We were amazed. You could get anything, and I mean ANYTHING with the longhorn logo on it. You could easily decorate an entire house in the UT Longhorn theme.

 UT garden

 Longhorns EVERYWHERE

 We took a gander at the women's basketball trophies.

 Getting into the Longhorn spirit.

 Hook 'em horns!

Longhorn scoreboard - too bad the Texas rivalry game the night before was an away game.

We made the slow wander back to the hotel stopping for lunch on the way back. With intents of going back to the hotel we continued wandering and made it to the flagship Whole Foods (a stop with CB's nuts in mind) and various other shops along the way. After that it was dinner on 6th and out for some live music. Talk about people watching... Texans sure love their tight pants, cowboy boots and RHINESTONES. Wow. This bar we stopped at for live music (and the band was wonderful) was just flat out strange. There was a guy with a shoe polishing chair in the corner. Have a drink, listen to music and get your shoes polished?? Whatever...

Something else we learned on this trip is Texans are complete whimps when it comes to rain and bad weather. We woke up and grabbed a cup of coffee and headed out to catch the Austin Christmas parade. I was thrilled to see the giant balloons

Still a Washingtonian

Greyhounds in the parade!

 Animal balloon - they had trouble fighting the wind!

 Austin City Fireman Pipe and Drum Corp

 Santa's reindeer were police motorcycles - cute!

We eventually began to freeze to death so we jumped inside the cafe that was right behind us to finish watching the parade - and indulge in the this traditional English brekkie!

That afternoon (of course on the windiest day) we signed up for a bike ride around Austin. Austin is known for the colony of over one million bats that live under the Congress Street bridge. However, it was tail end of bat season, so no bats were present (go figure). We did enjoy a wonderful bike ride along the river and a beautiful sunset over the city.

 We stopped on a bridge on the ride - it was SO WINDY it was pushing my bike in the opposite direction I wanted to go. Helmet hair + wind makes for a hilarious photo though.

 Beautiful city at dusk

Blurry, but Austin at sunset

The next day we packed up and headed North. One thing is for sure - Texan drivers are scary. But we made it. Sad to leave Austin, a surprisingly hip city in an state of dull, brown boringness. 

The Corolla looked like Beastie in it's shadow!

Chris graduates on Friday - next stop - Albuquerque, New Mexico!

T-2 days until reunion time. Not that I'm counting.

Still alive, still well. This time, with good news.

Things are chaotic as usual and as I said before I can't wait for things to get back to normal (or at least 'normal' by the Walker definition).

I do have the joy of saying I have a job lined up for after graduation. I am just thrilled. I didn't expect getting a job would be so quick and easy, I guess I owe this one to my expert networking skills. While I was at the Franciscan Gig Harbor clinic I fished around and networked with a person that work at a clinic in Silverdale as well. Anyways, one of the three techs from Silverdale got a job at Harrison and there was an opening. She mentioned me to her manager and within a few weeks they had me pulled out of the Gig Harbor clinic and I'm completing the final few weeks of my clinicals at the Surgery Center of Silverdale. After Chris and I return from our road trip home I'll start working - for money! Yay! It's physican owned so there is much more investment in the staff, the mangment is amazing. I had no idea people actually respected their staff this much, free lunch daily and a monthly massage. Not a bad deal. Many people are baffled at my decision to work at a same day surgery center over a busy hospital, but I have a list of reasons why (at the top of the list - no call, no weekends, no holidays or 3am traumas. amen.) and I'm confident it's a good decision for me and Chris. The days go fast and the work is fulfilling and rewarding. And I can barely argue a 20 minute commute.

Some misc happenings around here.

Bear and Chris were Skyping

All that household guarding warrants a pillow at night, right?

Taking advantage of the sunny fall days in Port Gamble.

And afternoons at the beach (Point No Point). Mt Rainier was on my right and Mt Baker on my left. It's a rough life out here :)

I couldn't find the cat the other night... This was not the first place I checked...
Anyways. Not much else besides that. Bear and I are holding the fort down. I just cleaned this place within an inch of it's life. I dare Martha Stewart to try and find a speck of dirt. Try me.

Wings and Rudders and Flaps, Oh My!

Hello again from Texas! Carissa and I can gladly say we're now less than 50 days from seeing each other again. Seems like such a hurdle now a days. I have to remind myself that I'm in a much better position than my former Army buddies, who have the possibility of being sent away from their families for up to 18 months at a time.

The Electrical & Environmental (ELEN) course I'm in down here is going pretty well. I'm keeping my test scores high, which is keeping my attitude positive. My goal is to graduate top of my class...so far I'm on track with a 98% avg. (plus I have to show all of those young whipper snappers that I'm smarter than them, haha. Can't let them out do their Staff Sergeant)

Since my last post I was very fortunate to have Carissa come down and visit for several days. It was like a breath of fresh air, a reminder that I married my best friend. I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have someone support me like she does, and to treat me so well.

This is right after I picked her up in Dallas. Think we're happy to see each other?!

That weekend we ended up going wine tasting at the local winery. It was surprisingly great wine. I didn't think Texas had the capacity for good wine since the beer selection has been so poor. We might even bring a few bottles of wine to enjoy on the drive home.

We did some other driving around and exploring and really enjoyed ourselves. It was nice to just be together and relax. Something we hadn't been able to do for a while.

Fast forwarding to the first weekend in October, Sheppard AFB had an open house and air show. Did someone say air show?! I was there and armed with my camera. Perspective of my excitement: When I was 11 years old my Dad surprised me with a trip to Brunswick NAS for an air show. We saw the Blue Angels, an F-117 bombing demo (in the height of it's service life - around the time of the first Gulf War), an F-16, A-10, and P-3 demo and countless other aircraft on static and flying display. It was that very day which started my love and fascination for aircraft. And here I am today getting into the guts of them. Thanks Dad!

Here's a small squadron of T-38s with pilots from the NATO fighter training school here on base. The engines were fired up and they were getting ready to taxi for a formation flight over the crowd to start the show. (notice the large tail in the background?! Don't worry, I won't leave that one out.)


There were lots of aircraft on static display, which really gives you an opportunity to appreciate how large/small they are. Here's a German AF designed/owned Panavia "Tornado" (also flown by the UK, Italians and Royal Saudi AF. It has variable sweep wings and is a multi-role fighter aircraft that is still in heavy use. (long flight from Germany to Texas!)


Here's the old and new versions of the T-6 "Texan". The newer one is part of the NATO training school here on base. They have upgraded it a lot over the years to keep up with technology and fuel efficiency. The NATO pilots start out on this airframe before they can move on to the T-38 during their 14 month school. (and I thought 5 months was long!)


Here's a couple that I don't know what they are. The first is Czeck built I think, and the second is built by the British Aerospace Engineering (BAE) super-giant. I'm just not sure exactly what models the aircraft are.


There was a great flying demonstration of WWII era aircraft. Lots of them were US aircraft, but there was a Japanese "Zero" there to prove that it was much less capable than our P-51D "Mustang". Most of my pictures of these planes were taken while they were on the ground.


And then, there was a demonstration put on by a C-17 from Travis AFB. Not the most impressive C-17 demo I've seen. They left out the short field landing and backing up after landing. That's ok though, it was still nice to see one again. After the demo I showed a few of my classmates around on an Altus AFB C-17 that was on static display. I explained to them what I knew about the aircraft, which is still fairly limited. That will change in the next few years :).

Fun fact: the C-17 tail is 55 feet off the ground. There's actually a small passage way through the vertical stabilizer to allow an ELEN mechanic (my future trained capacity) to fix/change the light on the top of the empinage (tail). I bet there's a nice view from up there :).

This one's for Kyle and Jenna: two one-seater F-15 "Eagles" from the Oregon Air National Guard came to be on static display. These are the planes that intercepted the float plane which was in the Air Force One air space a few months back when the President was in Seattle. They have a top speed of around mach 2.5 (1,900 mph).

(the tail flash says Portland, OR)

Kyanne & Ryan sent me a cool postcard a week or so ago with a JN-4 "Jenny" WWI training aircraft on it. Ironically I saw one at the airshow. It's one of only 4 left in flying condition in the world. Between 1916 and 1920 there were a few hundred JN-4s at Sheppard AFB (then it was Call Aviation Field). Very interesting to see a piece of history like this still flying!


An F-16C (which is a one seater, the F-16D is a two seater) came to put on a demonstration, and then complete a heritage flight with a WWII aircraft that's 45 years its elder. The demo was amazing. Incredible to see it fly by the crowd at 650mph and then climb straight into the sky. What a fun ride that must be!


And to finish the show, the Canadian Snowbirds put on a demonstration. I have to admit, I was impressed with the quality of the show. They fly 9 jets together in formation. Their jet of choice is the CT-114, a Canadian trainer jet. Not a very capable aircraft, but it's stable and smooth which allows them to fly in cool formations like these:

This next formation was cool. Two of them flew on top of each other with two other Snowbirds "threading the needle", which means they were rolling over the smoke trails of the two stationary jets. It was really cool to see. I haven't seen the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds do a stunt like it.

And one last formation before they came down to land.

Now, back to studying so I can graduate and get out of this state. I think oil was the only thing to keep people here. Not a very pretty state, that's for sure! Take care everyone! -Chris