Day 10 – Goodbye Glasgow… it wasn’t that bad after all

After 10 days in Glasgow and 6 days of testing, it was time to hit the road out of the St Marie town near Glasgow,MT. Despite the scary looks, this place turned out to be a very peaceful location and with a great display of stars at night. Every day we had beautiful days with perfect temperatures but sucks that there is really nothing to do here and that out of those 10 days, we only had 3 days to explore because the rest of the days were filled with 12-10 hr days of work along with many early morning starts… and I hate morning starts… yuck…

In 10 days, definitely explored the entire Glasgow town and its many restaurants (only 3 lol) and also did a lot of home cooking and grilling which was actually fun. Staying 5 minutes from work was actually perfect to get that extra sleep in those early mornings. Got to see and get that small town feeling that you get in other towns like in Panama… everyone knows everyone and the craziest thing (which does not happen in Panama) is that we never had to lock the cars or the house. You definitely don’t see that in many places anymore.

I also enjoyed the company of my 3 roommates. We all got along very well and had a lot of fun drinking at Sam’s or at the Hangar. Our Sam’s waitress also got a blast with us, refilling our drinks and serving what I thought were her 4 favorite customers: her redheaded step child, jack & coke, crown royal and sour… yeah… I was named sour either for my selection of cranberry vodka and my tired face that day or maybe because I am sour… lol don’t know.

I also got pulled for speeding … that sucked! 37 on 25 but the cop was very nice about it and just gave me a warning. Sucks anyways!

In those 10 days, I did missed talking to her but she was not happy about being alone and I understand because I end up missing two events that we planned for months. It sucks that I didn’t get to see Jack Johnson or that I didn’t leave to Leavenworth with the others. Somehow, it was really helpful to go back to those college-like days: living in the house with all guys and have nothing to do after work (although I had classes to listen and all that). Plus, being stuck with no phone signal also forced the interaction among the people in the house and that helped me clear my mind about her not sounding like she wanted to talk to me probably because she was mad.

It wasn’t that bad after all… got some cool pics of the airplane, got to be in a very cool testing and made some good friends along the way. But it was a good time to get back. I don’t like to be in bad terms with her and I wouldn’t like to be stuck in Seattle either and with some free time… Seattle has become more of a problem lately for both of us. She keeps talking about how people is not up to make friends and now that I think about it… it is real… I haven’t make a new friend since I moved here and I don’t even talk to the ones I had here before because time has change things. I even got a txt message about Mark getting married… life definitely changes a LOT in 3 years.

Now im looking forward to Orlando and hopefully some good encounters with those good old friends that make my college days definitely awesome.

I also got to see a show on the History channel about the world’s most dangerous airports… guess which one was first… LUKLA! Now this will definitely add Nepal to the list of crazy things I done.

Its time for a change… I can feel it coming. I was feeling like loosing excitement but this trip helped me to get excited again. I help making very cool products and its awesome to be part of the testing. Hope these pics do the talk about how cool the new 747 is… and seeing the landing from the cockpit was so amazing that I was just speechless and smiling the entire time. I’ve come a long ways from those adventurous days in Santa Clara and sometimes it just hits you… this is cool.

Aqui los dejo con algunas fotos desde el sitio de prueba del nuevo avion de carga 747-8F. Estas fotos fueron tomadas desde Glasgow, Montana donde las pruebas de efectos terraneos de este nuevo avion fureron efectuadas. Las pruebas de efectos terraneos (creo que esta seria la mejor traduccion) ayudan a predecir como el avion se comporta cerca del suelo (especificamente cerca de la autopista durante el despegue o aterrizaje) y fueron conducidas en este avion especialmente por sus nuevas alas. Las pruebas consisten en pasos sobre la autopista, sin tocar la pista, a varias velocidades y haciendo que el avion se incline sobre la autopista hasta un angulo de 9 grados en diferentes configuraciones y diferentes alturas desde 25 hasta 5 pies sobre la autopista. Con los resultados de estas pruebas, nuestro grupo va a actualizar la simulacion de este avion para poder certificar nuestro simulador y poder usarlo para entrenar pilotos.

Day 1 - Why is this place so empty? - 747 Flight testing in Glasgow,MT

The day started after waking up for a 5:52 AM flight to Palmdale, CA. Definitely not the best morning person especially when I couldnt go to bed until like 1 AM.On the way to Glasgow Montana we stopped in 3 different states and it was a long trip to this place that is only around 900 miles away... (only... that's a straight line distance between Seattle and here so much farther than that).
Stress levels are a little high because I am still thinking on a way to return to Seattle for the JJ concert but I am starting to give up on the idea :(... I wouldnt hurt so much if I wouldnt plan this for about 4 months but will see what happens. Due to the high stress content, then I have a bottomless appetite... it sucks... I feel hungry but dont get anything to satisfy it. It started with a breakfast with chorizo at Palmdale, CA, followed by salted peanuts and honey roasted peanuts in the airplane and fried chicken in Glasgow (ughh).
The airplane from Seattle to Palmdale was awesome: only 7 people total and plenty of space so I got to rest which made the trip way faster. We left Palmdale with around 30 people total and we had to stop at Salt Lake City Utah to refuel. On the way down I saw LAke Tahoe for the first time and we also flew over Las Vegas (way to tease ourselves). I also saw the test airplane from the air parked in Palmdale when we were leaving the site.
So on the way from Utah to Glasgow I kept falling sleep while trying to read my class material but I woke up for the last 30 minutes of the trip to see dessert, a big lake and more dessert. We then landed in a single airstrip and got off the airplane. 90 degrees outside and lots of wind were waiting for us at Marco Regional Airport. After getting the rental cars and after minutes getting lost in the big town of Marco (which is not big btw) we finally found our brick building. The impression I got from the town the first 20 minutes was a lot of empty, destroyed looking buildings... its like stepping in to a resident evil video game scene with no one around. They told us not to try to get in those buildings but to the right of our place there is a whole town completely empty... church and everything.
While trying to Google a creepy story behind the town of MarCo or St. Marie, I ran into some pics from people very excited about this place (Some Pics of the neighbor town of St Marie, MT). I dont understand if my fellow blogger was being sarcastic because he caught the essence of the emptiness of this place in his pics and the irony that there are 182 people in the town and 1,035 buildings... go figure why these buildings are not being destroyed but if you ever come by here, it just looks like a nuclear bomb felt and I am now waiting for some people from the Hills Have Eyes to come and get us (that is not even funny... no one will ever know what happened cuz its so damn in the middle of nowhere :( . I am scared as hell to look to the right and see something moving because I dont expect nothing to be moving in that area... but my adventurous spirit will test the limits and go for a jog in the "closed" area tomorrow morning. Wish me luck and hopefully I dont crap in my pants....
Never seen something like this even in Panama. We have dirty looking buildings but people are always around... this is just unique. I got some pics of the town and the place where we staying which btw also has a creepy basement just like the one in Psycho ...
Somehow the place is actually so tranquil that you can probably relax on it but will see once the 747 arrives to see what happens... til then I will leave you with some previews...

Look who is a travel agent now?

So a while ago I decided to get together with a selective group of people to share what me and my friend Stan have found about Nepal and the Gokyo Ri Trek. I failed to get ready in time to have this meeting so like always I had to rush last hour to create a presentation and after almost 6 hours and lots of rereading and picture finding I had something to show to the others. My "selective" group of people got extended somehow to 12 and keeps growing. Hopefully the Annapurna cafe, which is the location of this so called informational meeting, doesn't have any problems accommodating us with a laptop and talking about Nepal like we are from there.

Making this powerpoint was actually very exciting. I realized I really enjoy this planning thing but at the same I get really nervous thinking about leading big groups. Maybe this will be a good practice for my dream of one day opening my own hostel. 

I cannot stop getting freaked out about hiking at these high altitudes and I dont know why. As I searched for pics I got to read about 5 other blogs and just gives me chills... weird. But on the other hand I saw that REI is promoting a trek similar to ours and has it as experience level 3-4 which is not that bad. It should be totally normal if I read at my coworkers blog that people in her trip never hiked before... COTMF's!

 I think the most exciting thing about making this is that I cannot wait a year from now to look at this and see what actually happened from what we initially planned. Its going to be hilarious.

Nepal 2011

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Starting a blog's life

I never saw myself creating a blog but seem like a good idea to keep track of past experiences and to plan for future traveling.
Lately I have been looking a lot into going to Nepal in 2011. I dont know how this trip will go but sure I am excited just to think about it but also scared of the physical and mental requirements to trek in the highest mountains of the world... We are thinking about discarding the Everest Base Camp trip and now we are focusing on finding details about the Gokyo Ri trek. More details to come... for now I will continue to read Lonely Planet and obtain the most important details.
I'm also debating in writing this blog in Spanish... I will decide that later.