The reason I put it that way is because my name is painted on aircraft 11, yet I never take her anywhere. She is to heavy, always broken, and in general a party
pooper... now 72! That chick is aways up for a road trip! I feel like we had a real connection on the trip to Tucson and you know... one thing leads to another... 11 is
layed up right now in a million pieces anyways, so I went to the Phased Maintenance Hanger and told her I would be away on a business trip for a month. After reassuring her that I would miss her cute electrical shorts in the instrument lights and her unique control shake i told her i was going to Cleveland and probably wouldn't get the chance to call. Then it was off to Vegas in 72, "the other woman!"
(To any girls reading this... THAT WAS ALL MADE UP!... well, my name really is on 11 and I do feel weird that I never get to fly her... but the above paragraph is totally a joke and bears no relation to any previous interaction of mine with women or anyway i would behave in the future.)
*Also... most of the pictures are more impressive if you expand them to full size.*
ok... maybe not this one, but at least we are off!
Either there was a gigantic bug way the fuck up hear, or mustard condiment packets are self-aware and have a space program. Both are impressive... and neither was fun to look at for the rest of the day.
The Bonneville Salt Flats. Pretty much exactly how you would expect them. They are a lot easier to get to than I would have guessed. Actually they are right off the highway a few hours west of Salt Lake City.
This is where we spent our first night. It is effectively an abandoned WWII airfield. As we were getting closer the flight engineer said. "man, this looks a lot like the movie "Con-Air."" I said, "naa... half the air fields in the west look like this. it is just another dilapidated airfield..."
Son of a bitch... he was right! The plane is still here... abandoned. The inside was stripped and placed on a bus chassy. You drive it with a big steering wheel. It never actually flew in the movie. This airfield has actually been in quite a few movies. It was Area-51 in Independence day, as well as a bunch of others... the old guy in the fuel truck told me, but I forgot.
As it turns out this nearly abandoned airfield was where they did the training for dropping the first nuclear bombs. The whole place is being reclaimed by the desert, but there is a little display with a replica of Little Boy with a bunch of signatures on it...
It seems that the most impressive scenes that you want to show people can never be captured well on camera. Or maybe I just can't do it to my own satisfaction. Just imagine this picture as if it was incredibly awesome.
68-10772 is a bitch again. Transmission troubles force us down in the middle of the bomb range. We made a fire, played like damsels in distress, and waited to be rescued. 72 does this a lot to me...
So we hear that the pool parties at the Venetian are "off the hook." So we go there. The idea seemed to be that we pay them $20 to be on the other side of a curtain that was exactly like the side we were on only the other side was cooler because we payed $20 to be there. There were no honeys of floozies on either side. (The 60 Deg F and the 20 knot wind may have been a factor... but it seemed like pool weather to us from Montana.) Either way we had a drink at the bar instead of going in. Those are $8 beers we have in front of us... Looks like they got our money anyways. Vegas wins this round! "Eddie" is checking on some MILFs and "Snowday" is watching a sparrow eat his almond.
A helicopter tour of the strip is way cheaper if you bring your own helicopter... actually everything in Vegas is cheaper if you bring your own... the booze, the women... in fact, you are probably better off with what you have where you are. Don't go to Vegas with it, that would be pointless!
Because of the darkness the camera had a hard time taking clean pictures... but it still pretty much looks just like this even with out the shaking. We walked around down there quite bit. Hours and hours actually. I swear there are Mario Brothers style warp pipes down there. You will walk into one casino, then after a half hour trying to find the door back out, you will emerge from an entirely different casino half a mile away and on the other side of the street. Lots of walking... As far as I can tell, Casinos are built like lobster-traps. There is a huge obvious way in, but there seems to be absolutely no way out.
The reason this picture is in here is because of the conversation I had wile taking it:
Ogre: Hey, why are you guys sitting out here on the curb?
Notorious: They evacuated us, they found a suspicious package in at the front desk. They wont let anyone inside.
Ogre: That's no good. I need to get inside. I lost that big briefcase I had with all the mission paperwork... I need to go look for it...
(don't worry, his briefcase was found...)
We went out for Halloween. I taped some garbage bags together in the shape of a big condom and went as a gigantic dick. Just before we went home I sold my costume to this drunk British guy for $15... It didn't fit him very well... and he tore it putting it on. I still kept his money even though i sold him a condom that broke. I guess it wasn't a costume at all...
The most visually insane award goes to the Montigo Bay Casino in Wendover, NV. Absolutely everything in here is either glowing or reflective! Even the carpet!
THE PETTING ZOO!
There is a place at Nellis AFB called the petting zoo. It is basically a huge yard with a bunch of captured foreign equipment. The theory behind it is if you are more familiar with your enemy's equipment, you will better be able to defeat it. Whether that is true or not, it is a hell of an interesting place to play around. Sort of junkyard combined with museum.
Shitload of captured armor.
Holy Fuck! I am in a HIND... I never thought I would ever sit in one of these!!!
Russian labels with notes pasted over them. This may be a preview of the next year of my life.
"Snowday" getting familiar with an SA-7... sort of like playing with your nightmares...
I can't add to this picture with a caption.
Nellis Air Force Base gets full points for awesomeness. The Bomb Range also equally pimp. Las Vegas itself... Well, I'll just put it this way, you should never stay there long enough to do your laundry 3 times.
