Swiss Adventure: Bungee Jump (fall)

It wasn’t possible for all of the 600 delegates attending the Adventure Travel World Summit to participate in one of the many Pre-Summit Adventures like the one I shared in my last post. So, the first day of the summit is actually a “Day of Adventure” before filling the halls of the conference center for all the various sessions.

I was assigned to document the Bungee Jump. Or, as I indicate in the title, it was more of fall, or teeter. At the base of Mt. Titlis near the town of Engelberg south of Lucerne in Switzerland, we boarded a large rectangular cable car or gondola with a hole in the middle. I found out in a little video clip that I did (see below) that I was with a bunch of rookies. Nobody on this trip had ever been bungee jumping before. And, to complete the rookie-ness, I had never been either. The closest thing I’ve done like bungee jumping was the Canyon Swing just the day before as seen in the last video. Since we were “jumping” from a gondola, they asked us to just teeter forward and pivot over our feet to fall, not to jump and push the gondola away causing it to swing.

Check out the full story for the video!

STS-133: Discovery’s Last Launch

It’s been a childhood dream to see a Space Shuttle launch and only with the threat of the program ending have I put a concerted effort towards actually getting there to see it. Last fall I spent a week on the Space Coast in Florida waiting for STS-133, the Shuttle Discovery to fly it’s last mission. Each day they delayed the launch until finally I couldn’t afford to spend more time in Florida and they scrubbed the launch for at least a few weeks.

After months of going over the leaky fuel tank and related components the launch was scheduled again for 24 Feb 2011 and I was there, again.

As I suspected, after having so much time to get ready for the launch, Discovery was ready to go and lifted off without a hitch, much less any major holds in the countdown sequence.

At the range of about 7 miles on the 5th floor of a condo complex where some friends have a unit I got to see, hear and feel the excitement of witnessing humans breaking away from the grasp of gravity into space. It is awe inspiring.

STS-133 carried a storage module to the International Space Station as well as a new and permeant crew member: Robonaut 2. Click below for more photos.

Final Touches: Kongakut River

Car TetrisThe trip is on. I departed PDX at 9.30pm in the dark and chased the sun down by flying north and arrived in Anchorage around midnight where, though it was overcast, it was still dusk out.

Nathaniel Wilder with Sune and Lindsay Tamm picked me up and we stayed up until 2.30am catching up on all the corners of the world we had been to since seeing each other last, fully aware that we had the next 18 days to do this on the river and that we should get some much needed sleep.

Weekend: Music & Planes

Alex Cook is out here on his West Coast CD release tour with a box of 300 “Tree of Life” CD’s. I made it to his show in Encinitas where the producer of the album, Jason Froese joined him to play bass. Andrew set up two video cameras to record the whole thing and I snapped a few stills, see below. The music is awesome and should be available to all via iTunes and the such soon. If you want to see Alex live yourself, check out his tour schedule at http://myspace.com/alexcookmusic. If your area isn’t on there, drop him a line and have him come out your way!

The next day, Dad and I headed to the Miramar Air Show. I’ve been to a few air shows, including this one years ago. But this was the best way to do an airshow: be on the Air Crew for a static display aircraft. Dad helped Pamala bring her T-34a Mentor over on Thursday and it’s one of the planes on display for folks to check out. As Air Crew, we got passes to the Air Crew Chalet, a little section of the flight line roped off where they provided us with meals, snacks, drinks and a place to sit and watch the air show in the sky. Dad and I got in early to get good parking in the special Static Display Crew Lot and really enjoyed the day. After the Blue Angles did their thing, we had to hand tow the T-34a past the public access area to the active ramp. Dad fired up the Mentor and flew it back to Gillespie while I drove the car over to pick him up. Select photos of the air show also below and on my Facebook Page and in my gallery.

T-34a Mentor Flight

So, Dad flies with a group called San Diego Salute, which is a group of guys with T-34a Mentors who hire themselves out for air shows, flybys and scenic flights of the area. I’ve had the opportunity to fly with them twice now.

The first time I took some video, but mostly shot stills as the light was quite good. The second trip, the overcast sky made shooting stills less inspirational, but I had learned from my poor video footage to put a smarter piece together. So, the link below (or above – click the # above the image) is of stills from the first flight, and the video below is from the second flight.

If you want to know more about hiring this crew to do a flyby for you check them out at http://www.sandiegosalute.org/.