My daughter came to visit this weekend and got to see our new house for the first time. She got here late Friday night but in spite of that we all got up at 4am Saturday morning! We wanted to go see the Reno Balloon Races. We had no idea if it would be worth getting up at such an ungodly hour but reading about it in the paper made it sound interesting. We left home at 4:30 and just followed the traffic. We parked on one of the side streets near Rancho San Rafael Park and then walked. There were lots of people but it was easy to find a place to sit in the middle of a dark field. First we watched the Glow Show at 5am. It was quite a sight to see the balloons light up as they ignited the burners. Then at 5:30 we watched the dawn patrol. 5 balloons launching together and staying in formation in the night sky. It was incredibly beautiful. After the dawn patrol there was a break, so we had breakfast at the Kiwanis Club pancake breakfast. Around 6:30 they started inflating and launching over a hundred balloons. We got to stand right in the middle of it all. It was great fun. But next year I will dress more warmly, bring blankets to sit on, and a thermos of hot chocolate or coffee. I’m not sure I will be there for the glow show next year but the dawn patrol, the pancake breakfast and the simultaneous launch of over 100 balloons as the sun rose was absolutely worth getting up for.
Sierra canyon Hiking Group Hike on the Pacific Crest Trail to Benson Hut
The Del Webb over 55 community that we live in, Sierra Canyon, has a hiking group that does an easier hike on Mondays and a longer hike on Thursdays. Today Duke and I did our first Thursday hike. It was wonderful. We met at 7:30 at the lodge and were on the trail by 8:30. We started just south of highway 80 at Donner Pass and followed the Pacific Crest Trail to a Sierra Club hut called Benson hut. It was beautiful day and the trail followed the crest of the mountains. We had phenomenal views although it was a bit hazy because of the California fires. The first part of the trail went through Sugar Bowl ski area and over the top of the long tunnel that trains go through to get over the pass.
The first pass we went over was Roller pass where the Donner party used logs and oxen to pull their wagons over the pass.
The trail followed the crest and gave us breath taking views in all directions.
While we were walking along here Duke fell and hit his head. Although it was a scary fall and his head looked bad he didn’t even get a headache. I guess he has a hard head!
Our destination was the Sierra Club Benson hut which was 5.8 miles from the trail head. We had lunch and then headed back.
Although my feet are sore and I am tired it was great hike. I think we should get hiking poles for Duke before our next hike. The ones I have were a gift from Bonnie and they worked great!
Here is a link to my flickr page with all my pictures of the hike.
Sierra Canyon bus tour to Fallon NAS
Yesterday the Del Webb community we live in, Sierra Canyon, offered a bus tour to Fallon Naval Air Station and we went. It was so cool. Fallon is about 50 miles east of Reno. It is the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Command. It is where the Top Gun school is. Our guide described it as the graduate school for pilots. Pilots come in and are trained to go back and be the trainers for their units. In addition whole airwings come in to Fallon to be trained. An airwing inclues about 40 F18 Super Hornets each of which cost 40 Million.
The first thing we did when we arrived was to go up into the observation floor in the control tower.
We could see the F5 Tigers that were painted to be the agressor aircraft for training and at the other end of the flight line we could see the F18s that were part of the air wing there for training.
After the observation deck we went into one of the hangers where one of the pilots stationed a Fallon told us about what they do. Our guide was call sign BUDA for Big Ugly Dumb Animal. His real name was Brandon Harjer.
He said that Fallon is unique in that it is so big that they can train on air to air and air to ground combat at the same time. He told us all about his training and how he got to be a pilot. He has served in Afganistan. It was so cool to walk around the F5 tigers that they fly and ask him questions about them.
From the hanger we went into the ready room where we saw the pilot’s flight gear and parachutes.
From there we went out on to the flight line where all the planes were. I know I have said it before but it was so cool!
Then we had a picnic lunch and walked around the airplane museum. It was really interesting to see the MiGs and the early jets.
The whole tour was a real treat. I love jets and especially fighter jets.
Here is the Flickr link to all my pictures from the tour.
Blogging Side Benefits
Last week I wrote a post titled Inspiration linking to Tom Mangan’s blog about 4WheelBob being the first person in a wheel chair to climb White Mountain. You can imagine how much I felt like an insider when I saw the story on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News last Friday. It was exciting!
Personally I always found that blogging really helped my career as well as expanding my personal network. It helped me clarify my goals and my strategy and tactics and it made me visible to other people. While I was at Sun I know I did a better, more visible job because I blogged. I believe blogging helped me get the job at Intuit. When I left Intuit I got a job offer as a result of blogging.
It seems to me that Tom Mangan’s story about 4WheelBob climbing White Mountain is another example about blogging helping a career. Tom seems to be blogging about what he likes to do and it seems to me that blogging must help his career. I emailed him to ask him about this and he replied "to answer your question re blogging and the career: it helps, but not as much as you might think." He pointed out that blogging might help but he still need a day job unrelated to hiking. Blogging takes a lot of time so one might question whether the return is worth the time it takes.
Bottom line is I guess most of us blog because we enjoy it. Any career benefits are side benefits, not the reason to blog. Now that I am retired from corporate life I like to think that blogging still helps my career. I am the CEO of Marion Inc. My goal is to live, to love, to learn and to be interesting. Blogging is part of my strategy to enhance the learn and be interesting part. Maybe that is at the heart of why I enjoy blogging.
Sierra Canyon Hiking Group Hike in the Tahoe-Donner Ski Area
Duke and I went hiking again with the Sierra Canyon Hiking group again on Monday. Sierra Canyon is the 55 and over community that we live in so all the hikers are 55 or older. Monday we hiked
Here is the Flickr link for all of my pictures of this hike.
Directions: to Tahoe-Donner
I80 west to Truckee
Exit 184 (Donner State Park/Donner Pass Rd)
Turn Right
0.4 miles turn left at light on Northwoods Blvd
1.3 miles to blinking light
Turn left on to Northwoods Rd
0.7 miles turn left on Skislope Rd
4.2 miles to Glacier Way
Glacier Way Trailhead #24 on left
Park in trailhead parking lot.
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