Big Sky, Montana

I just got back from another week of skiing with my buddies from back east, this time at Big Sky, Montana. (It should be called Big Mountain, Montana, see picture above.) Virtually nothing related to aviation occurred on this trip, unlike the previous one to Snowbird (see “Amazing”, December 12, 2007), except I did see a Socata TBM 850 taxiing at Bozeman Airport, the aircraft pictured in the previous blog “Pro Am”, and, more importantly, I now have a digital camera, a Canon G9, which I took on this trip, facilitating considerably my ability to include pictures. (Virtually all of the previous photos were taken with a Leica M6, a great camera, but film only, which means that I have to have the photos scanned and converted to digital. It works, but it is slow, costs money, and the result is a big step removed from original quality. The direct to digital obviously has many advantages when doing a blog.)

The main reason I wanted to blog something about this trip, aviation related or otherwise, is because of a really funny thing that happened at the airport waiting to go back to San Francisco. Two of my buddies were waiting for an earlier flight to New York, and one of them, Dan, called home to say he was on his way and got his nine year daughter, Dana, on the phone. After the usual chit-chat, Dan said, “It sounds like you picked up a cough while I was gone.”

“No,” she said, “the kitchen’s on fire.”

“The kitchen’s on fire?

“Yah, mommy burned something in the microwave and now the microwave is on fire.”

“Well, maybe you ought to get out of the house!”

“Okay, dad, see you when you get home.”

I guess it wasn’t really a bad fire, but they may need a new microwave. Good nerves on Dana. May make a good pilot someday.