Traveling Fools

24 May 2005
American Airlines flight 1168 to Chicago. We just took off for Chicago and caught one of the most spectacular views in the US I believe when we lifted out of the clouds in the Portland area. It was indeed stupendous to see Mt Rainer, Mt St. Helens, and Mt Adams to the north and after turning around to see to the south, Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, the Three Sisters, Broken Top, Three Finger Jack, Mt Bachelor and then, far off in the distance on the horizon, we could even see to Crater Lake, Mt Pit and the Siskous. Beyond that there was a great bit of haze which must have been California.

Yesterday I was a Skydive Oregon where I made a couple tandem jumps and a couple fun jumps. Of course I hear you asking yourself why tandems are not called fun jumps. Tandems are great fun really. Then reason we don't call them fun jumps is because when you get down and start packing for the next jump you realize that it is a lot more work to get the tandem parachute back in the bag than it was to pack your sport rig. So it is that a tandem is less "fun" than a fun jump. On the other hand, we get paid for doing tandems whereas we have to pay for a fun jump! Now that is a little screwball I'd say. I guess that if we didn't pay anything we would not think we are having fun. Be that as it may, I had a great day yesterday.

25 May 2005
Today happened earlier than normal as we flew eastward towards Paris, France. We had written ahead of time to let Dave, a friend of ours who works for Air France and who we have not seen since we got married, to let him know that we would be flying through and spending the day in Paris. We had not heard back from him but to our surprise when we came out of the customs gate he gave us a call and there he was out of nowhere. We had a great time reconnecting and getting to know his two charming girls of almost two and nearly three. Unfortunately Dave’s wife was on trip to Mexico with Air France. Both of them have made a career of working for that company. We took a little walk around a lake near their home after lunch. It was great to just relax and enjoy seeing Dave as a new father. You see, in 1999 when we got married no one had any idea that something was up. He was not even interested in anyone at the time as far as we knew. Not that we are the kinds of people to know about those kinds of things first anyway.

We are Outta Here!

Rod's Blog
We have comme through security and are sitting here waiting to board our flight outta here to Chicago, Paris and finally Abidjan. Interestingly enough while getting a cup of coffee after checking in we happened to meet Dave Ragsdale and his family who were up from Eugene to pick up his son Seth who is back from Afghanistan. He is with the Air Force and it looks like he is to be stationed next in Ft. Louis, Washington. We have not see these guys since 1999 and it was great to meet them this morning. Incidently Seth arrived with his older brother's (Arlen) fiancée, (I forget her name). Interesting the way paths cross and the way we meet at times.

We are scheduled to be in Paris for about 14 hrs tomorrow and then on to Abidjan from there. We might or might not be able to post anything on line once we get there. For those of you who are in the habit of praying, and I would hope that is most of you, you might mention to God this trip and ask him to keep us from getting too tired.

Talk to you all later.