Chapter 4, Verse 5: Cars, Copters, and California Pie.

Hey Space Travelers, here's the scoop! I am going to be hard pressed to beat this adventure, so listen up. My Cousin Christa works for a company that used to be a part of the government and now is privatized. She basically is an investigator and does critical background checks on all sorts of people in the government. If you are receiving a large military promotion in the Navy, or if you are getting a higher grade security clearance of any sort she'll check you out and by the end, she may know whether you have stripes or hearts on your underwear. Anyway, she got this brand new Dodge Charger as a company car, to which I say... dude. Awesome.

This Morning in particular we, being my Aunt and my Cousin and I, were going to go hiking in the Torrey Pines area. However when I woke, I learned that plans had changed and that My uncle Gary's Friend Lyle had offered to take us all on a helicopter ride. This is excellent news to wake up to; news being on par with waking up to find you had superpowers. For me, a pretty big deal.The Helicopter that we would be flying in was a Robinson 44, or R44 for short. A small personal aircraft with seating for 4 people. When we arrived and I first saw the helicopter, I was irrationally excited. Honestly, it was a struggle to contain myself. The worst part was that I had to just look at it for so long. As you can see above, the morning fog had yet to burn off and visibility was low. We were grounded for some time.Today I would be riding shotgun. I'm not sure if it's still called shotgun in aircraft, but what is known is how awesome it felt to be up near the controls. I should tell you about Lyle. Lyle is a retired Electrical Engineer. He worked many years for several companies in the aerospace industry, the most recognizable being General Dynamics. He also worked on the Voyager space probe, so needless to say, this guy has done and seen some really amazing things in his life time. Today he was treating us to the helicopter ride because he loves any excuse to fly and he wanted to show me, and aspiring young aerospace engineer, a fun time. I hope I will be able to offer this kind of experience to someone like me in my later years.

Now that the fog had gone away, we did all final checks and took off. Our first destination was the beach. We flew low and the surfers almost always waved at us. From the air you can see all sorts of fish under the water that you would never be able to see from the shore. Most notable was the gigantic school of leopard sharks near La Jolla shores. We few over the seal beach too. You can see many of the seals just lying down in the sun. As we flew inland, we came across a large dam. What might not be terribly obvious is that this dam is actually located at a really high elevation. The water does not naturally arrive here from run-off, it is actually pumped up to it.Aviator sun glasses actually make aircraft fly better, who knew? I may be one of a very limited population who has taken a my-space-at-arms-length-self-portrait-with-your-own-camera-shot from the cockpit of a helicopter. Hardly relevant I know, but then again, what is these days?

Hey Space Travelers, here's the useless thing I photographed for the post today! This is the Governator's house in San Diego county! It's best described as fucking redundantly huge! Out of frame is the hot tub, which is on the other side of the mountain this is built on top. The noteworthy thing about the hot tub is that there is a 30ft water slide into it. Can you imagine the potential?Eat some soap Space Travelers, and while your at it clean behind your ears! We flew up a mountain later and got something to eat. No, I didn't eat soap. I got baked goods! Baked goods...on a mountain...helicopter ride...you dig? Is this setting in yet?The mountain had really funny cars. JFK would have kicked this cars ass in a machine fight!
After retrieving our mountain prize we flew back over great metropolitan San Diego and guess what? We saw our house from up high! Johnny Freedom Car must have heard the helicopter and came running outside! My uncle was elated to see the overhead photo of the neighborhood because his pool was the cleanest. This reminded me of my own father and how he has become strangely obsessed with our lawn since moving to the suburbs. Honestly, I think moving the lawn is the way suburbanites exercise their aggression or competitive nature towards each other. Vicious devils.All jokes aside, it was an awesome day, and perhaps the biggest adventure thus far in my journey. I am so fortunate to constantly meet so many extraordinary people in my lives (I'm already on my 3rd by my count). Days like today make me excited for the future.

Post Script Space Travelers - I learned my camera can do some video, so I may be able to put some video up soon, assuming ti doesn't just drain my batteries.