The USS Yorktown

I said I would update Sunday (July 1st), but once again the adrenaline fooled me and I was much more tired than I realized. Plus, I'm sure the adrenaline crash and this weekend's high temps didn't help. I got all of my chores finished in the morning hours and stayed indoors for the afternoon. The plan was to just watch movies, read a book, do light cleaning, etc. I sat down to read a book, nodded off, woke up, read some more and nodded off again. It's okay; we all need days like that sometimes. Today, I'm more than just tired. I think a sinus infection that I've been keeping at bay has found it's opening in my exhaustion. My pride hesitates to admit it to myself, but the pain in my ears, throat and sinuses is persuading me to give in and get help. Flying and sinus problems do not mix and continuing to fly when my sinuses are already giving me problems will not help. God, I feel like crap. I don't think there's any pain worse than the one you get in your ears.

On another note, lately I've had other people ask me to teach them about aviation. I have to laugh - me, teach you about aviation? I don't know anything yet! Apparently some people disagree with that. It's weird. Although I think more things are sticking in my head and I know a lot more than when I started. Not sure it's enough to start teaching someone else, but... yano. One of the coolest things is when Merlin asks me something that he's certain I do not know, and I answer it anyways. The look of shock on his face is priceless. "How did you know that?!", he'll exclaim. I dunno... mostly it's dumb luck. Many times when that's occurred, I have JUST gone over that material in the book or videos.

Anyways, The USS Yorktown. We left on Friday night. It was a Graduation Friday at work and those tend to run late usually. I had planned things out ahead of time to make sure I'd leave on time. Fortunately for me that I did that, for as you can control things, you cannot control students. Students had a much different plan and kept me at work until 7pm. We needed to meet for the trip at 8:30pm. A little bit of a rush, but everything was fine. We loaded up into cars and were driven onto Dobbins ARB. Our plane didn't arrive until 10pm, so we had plenty of time to sit around and chat. We were all in uniform and were told that polo shirts/gray skirts were permissible, but when I got there, everyone else was in BDU's (battle dress uniform). I was jealous and wanted to be like all of them. :(  However, I got to talk with some of the other female seniors who were going on the trip. I need to think up callsigns for them... So our plane (a C-17!!!!) finally came in, but we were delayed due to lightning. Finally, they see a break in it and we have to run to our plane because they are behind. Unfortunately, no pictures were permitted of the flight line, but we could take pictures in the plane. She was beautiful though.

We got onboard and got seated. The seats were facing sideways and there were no windows. Another girl who is a pilot and I tried closing our eyes to feel which way the plane was going. It had really steep banks and could go pretty fast. I wish I knew just how high and how fast we were going though.

Seating on the C-17

By the time we landed, got loaded onto buses, got dropped off at the hotel and got checked into our rooms, it was 2am. We had to get up at 7:30am. There were 4 of us in the room together - the other pilot female, her sister and the one that calls herself  "Lt. Mom", even though she's a Captain. We discussed who was going to take showers when and split them up two and two. Everyone wanted to crash then and also, no one really wanted to take them in the morning. Lt. Mom and I took them that evening though. I was sharing a bed with her and asked if she minded wet hair. lol She looked at me and said "It's not like I'm going to cuddle with you". We all cracked up. She always says funny things like that.

Lt. Mom was one of the first people I met at CAP and she really does act like the squadron Mom. She actually told me that I was in the wrong trailer, as she thought I was a Cadet. When I told her that I felt left out because everyone was wearing BDU's but me, she helped me get some last Thursday. I had trouble buttoning the blouse and she helped me, saying she really earns her nickname. And when we both have time, she's going to go combat boot shopping with me! I'm so excited! I really like her. She wants to start flight training with Merlin too. That would be soooo much fun!! She was training to be a pilot when she was younger, but stopped because she was pregnant and thought it was too dangerous. As she says now, "pregnant isn't an excuse anymore".

allll the time.

Our Cozy bunks.

We explored that ship from top to bottom. Hard to believe people actually lived on there for months, maybe even years, at a time. Got to hang out with all the other female Seniors all day. We took a break for lunch and got to eat it on the deck, which was awesome. The view was spectacular! The male seniors came out there, too, and we all chatted excitedly together. Come to find out that our bunks were much more luxurious than theirs... and we took the opportunity to rub it in. ;)  Ours were nestled in a cute little alcove with one stacked on top of another. Theirs were piled 4 high and they had to stagger themselves because once they climbed up into it, it would sag. HAHAHAHA Then one of them grumbles, "I think you have more room in the casket when you die". We laughed soooooooo hard! Poor boys.

The boy's bunks looked something like this... only stacked 4 high.

Afterwards, we took off and explored more of the ship. I think I took about 210 pictures total. We had an absolute blast! And one of the female seniors (the one who set up the whole trip) kept talking about ghosts on the ship and how we were going to go ghost hunting at night! I think I'll dub her "Spirit" because she was so much into the whole ghost hunting and she's very lively. We all took turns posing in the Captain's chair, taking pictures of one another. Spirit would try the handle of every door, turn every knob and flip every switch we saw. It was like a maze inside of that ship and it was sooo hot too! Very muggy in Charleston that weekend and our bunks was the only part of it that had AC, but the rest of the ship was open.

Spirit turning a knob.

Dinner was served in the mess hall. There were a lot of groups there that weekend, so we had set times when we could eat. We stood in line, got a tray and food was plopped on it. There was a choice between pasta and chicken, but the pasta had meat in it. No vegetarian meals. You eat what you are given or go hungry. We had just enough time to shovel all of the food into our mouths before the group behind us needed to come in. And that was just as well, as we were all VERY hungry after exploring the ship all day.

There were activities on-board the ship for us, like movies and such. They were showing a movie about the ship and one about the Blue Angels. I was tempted, but at the same time, they were giving a guided tour on the flight deck. Blue Angels I <3, but I went for the flight deck tour. It was hot and unbearable. I HURT by that point and it was hard to stay still. Lt. Mom came with me and some of the other male seniors went as well, but Spirit continued to explore the ship with the two sisters.

At night, some of the cadets went ghost hunting and of course, so did we. We even played the part of the ghosts sometimes. :)

Sleeping on the boat wasn't very easy because we could hear EVERYTHING! Everyone was told not to shower between the hours of 11pm and 7am because everyone could hear everything. We even made it back early so we could shower within that time. Some people did not listen and were up past midnight showering and talking loudly and then got up the next morning at 5:30am doing the same thing. The lack of sleep and heat gave me a migraine.

The migraine/upset stomach wouldn't let me eat breakfast the next morning. I tried and tried, knowing I'd have a long day ahead of me with an empty stomach. It was grits too - YUCK! I hate those when I'm feeling 100%. Spirit told the other seniors to look out for me the rest of the day, which I slightly resented at first. She said I was too shy to let anyone know how I was feeling and would push on. I said it was pride, not shyness. We took a driving tour of Charleston and I passed out in the car. Between the nap and continuously drinking water, I was able to bounce back. By the time lunch came around, I was ready for some food.

But we went to go see a museum about a submarine. At least I was well enough to be engaged in it, but needed food fast. I felt bad about asking for food when no one else was getting any and kept silent. The submarine was interesting. No pictures were permitted because it was decaying and they had to keep it underwater to keep it preserved. But it looked nothing like you'd think of submarines today. I'm not lying when I say it was tin can with a candle inside to help the sailors know if they were running out of oxygen. They had enough room to sit in it and had to row if they wanted to go up or down. I can't believe people actually did that! They were the real pioneers.

Finally, it was time to head to the AFB to catch our plane home. There was a delay and we were standing in line for a loooong time. My head started to feel weird and I felt myself starting to go. I turned to Lt. Mom and asked if she had any snacks on her. She tossed me a granola bar and I ate it quickly. Finally got my sandwich afterwards and nothing had ever tasted so good.

We ended up getting home sooner than planned because a hurricane was passing through Florida. We had people on the plane going down there and we were suppose to do a sweep to FL before going back to GA, but they didn't want us stuck down there.

Overall, it was a whirlwind trip and I was happy to be home. It worried me because I knew exactly a month after, I'd be heading to Oshkosh. I had never gone more than one day outside in the heat/sun at an airshow before. One day usually knocked me out quite a bit and I didn't know how I'd be able to handle 6 days...