Soarin' Over California

Okay, so I'll admit it. I'm spoiled. All my friends keep telling me that, so I'm not going to deny it anymore.

On my last business trip (December 8-11, 2008), we chartered a private jet because there was so many of us going from place to place. We flew from Salt Lake City to Denver to Phoenix to Irvine to Sacramento and back to Salt Lake City again... all in the course of those four days. And this is the plane we flew on...

Including the captain and first officer, the plane has seats for eleven people. The main cabin, probably 5 to 6 feet wide, comfortably seats 9 people, but there's technically seats for 10. This is Taylor and a few of our corporate executives on one of the flights. My back is against the wall at the back of the main cabin. A door behind me goes into the really fancy bathroom and then into the cargo hold.

This is the cockpit, seating the captain (left) and first officer (right). Talk about a sweet retirement job! Though, I'm not really sure how these guys found all the gadgets they needed... the number of buttons, switches, controls, meters, and levers needed was mind boggling!

On one of our flights we kind of maxed out our capacity. We had 10 people in the main cabin, while Taylor rode in the very fancy bathroom, and I flew in the jump seat, right at the back of the cockpit! It was seriously cool!

The jump seat was this little chair that slid out like a drawer into the middle of the aisle in the cockpit. We flew from Irvine to Sacramento, and I was there the whole flight! Flying is a whole new experience when you're watching two little old men go through a huge-long check list both at the beginning and end of the flight... I decided that I'm going to add "Learn to fly a plane" to my list of "Want to Accomplish"s in my life.

This is a picture of Santa Catalina Island off the coast of southern California. We had to fly over the ocean in order to gain enough altitude to fly over LAX airport.

When we were landing, Sacramento was foggy and cold. Remember that part about flying being a whole new experience when... Well, it's downright freaky when the two little old men are looking out the window asking each other if they can see the runway! It kinda makes you wonder what we miss by riding coach all the time...

Okay, so I'm admitting that I'm spoiled. I'm seriously so blessed to have the kind of adventures that I've been taking these last few months. I'm not complaining about free trips to really nice restaurants, amazing big cities, and private jets... I will also admit, however, that I really missed the peanuts and privacy my commercial flights provide me. :0)