Saturday, December 07, 2013

Taxi ride.

So I was flying in my dream.

Not the cool kind of flying in your dreams, but the kind of flying that involves the TSA and screaming babies.
Photo of Lockheed P2 Neptune water bomber taxiing by, taken from inside the gate area at RDM, just for Ancient Woodsman.

The airport terminal in my dream was modeled loosely after RDM, right down to boarding the plane via airstairs. The thing about the airport itself was the terminal appeared to share a large runway complex with a bigger and newer facility, and so there was an interminable amount of taxiing to get to the departure end of the runway.

Like, a lot of taxiing. And all this taxiing was down narrow little tree-lined taxiways paved with cracked and weed-shot asphalt that seemed way too narrow for the undercarriage and which looked suspiciously like the Monon Trail.

The seating was six abreast, and I was in 1E, which meant I didn't have that great a view of the trees flashing past the wingtip but, since they hadn't closed the cockpit door, I could see rather more trees off the port bow through the windscreen than was comfortable. I pulled the emergency info card from the bulkhead pouch, and amused myself by reading the abandon ship instructions for the creaky old 707, which had a very That '70s Show rust-and-tan (or "counterculture and draft card") color scheme and was operated by Colvin Air according to the card.

Despite the fact that we were racing to get out before we got closed in by an ice storm, there were innumerable interminable holds where we just sat there in the woods. During one of these, I absentmindedly fumbled a cigarette out of my purse before remembering duh, airplane. The young woman in the aisle seat, who was on her way to visit Farmgirl and who could have been her doppleganger, pulled out a Marlboro red and started smoking it more or less right at the flight attendant. I woke up before that little scene reached its denouement.

ETA: I remember where the color scheme came from! When I was working at SmithKline we had a 310 Quebec that was tan with dark brown striping that was a hangar queen. I used to amuse myself late at night by going out in the hangar and chasing down a tennis ball I'd bounce off the wall. I saw a lot of that old Cessna.


10 comments:

Paul said...

Channeling some history channel this am? I don't get traveling dreams much. Select statements that don't work I get plenty of. Some travel dreams might be a nice change.

Ancient Woodsman said...

One of my favorite assignments was a cooperative detail to help run RAC. Nice folks, pretty country. Odd how the Wiki article leaves out the Redmond Hotshots, a permanent fixture across the lane from the SMKJ base for the last five decades or so. And the airtanker base is very modern - to die for! - if one is in to using such phrases about wildland firefighting infrastructure.

One thing they don't have to worry about right around RDM is trees, though. Brush, sure...but trees? Uh...no.

Loved the color chart. The number of once-hip shade names on there paired with a certain other? I'm thinking is making Grace Metalious spin right now.

I used to think I had some strange dreams...until I discovered VFTP. How brave you are to share such very interesting (Arte Johnsonesque voice) adventures.

Butch_S. said...

Your interior description reminds me of flying on Continental 727s and DC-10s back when doing so was still fun.

Tam said...

I added a picture just for you, Ancient Woodsman! :)

Anonymous said...

I've been having a lot of travel dreams lately too.

Last night I couldn't decide if I
was driving or riding a bicycle.
Stopped to eat on both sides of a canal in restaurants run by parts of the same family. Didn't make it out of that town before waking up.
There may have been a gun store or
two along the way...

FarmGirl said...

..... you sure it wasn't really me? That does sound like something I would do if sufficiently annoyed....

Steve Skubinna said...

In the early sixties we lived on Oahu, at Iroquois Point. Just west of the entrance to Pearl Harbor. Whenever Japan had a quake, the tsunami alert would go out (always around midnight, it seemed) and we'd bundle into the car and go to NAS Barbers Point (why that was safe and Ewa Beach wasn't I dunno).

It was a pain for the parents I expect, but we kids loved it. Not only were there rows of reach in freezers with free ice cream, but sailors being sailors, guided tours were available. My absolute favorites were the P-2 Neptunes, especially sitting in the observer's seat in the glassed in nose.

Today whenever I see a P-2 water bomber I imagine sitting in that nose seat as the plane makes a run... realistically I'm sure nobody does, in fact I bet those seats have long since been removed as useless. But if they still had them, they could sell tickets and I'd be all over it.

Ancient Woodsman said...

Wow. I am truly honored.

Really, no sarcasm. There are only a few of those Neptunes in the LAT fleet anymore - chances are that very one flew over me many times on it's way to Mann Gulch in '07 on the Meriwether fire. The fire camp I established was in another gulch just east of Mann, direct line from there to HLN.

Wow. Mentioned in VFTP and a photo to boot. The only thing that could make this day better is putting some XM193 through the old 5-digit SP1.


Wait...I did do that this afternoon...what a day!

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

You might just want to dial the melatonin back to the minimum effective dose. I'm taking 3mg only because it's a PITA to split a 6mg tablet into even thirds.

Cybrludite said...

For some reason, my travel dreams seem to all involve arriving at college, going to a sci-fi convention, or some weird mix of the two.