Then This Happened...

First, Lithus is fine. His instincts are good.

However! Last week, he saw something (he could tell you what and he told me, but I don't understand it enough to tell you) that made him ask J, the mechanic (a good guy, very qualified, very solid), to check out the tail boom attachment. J looked it over that night and said it was fine. The next morning, though, Lithus still felt uncomfortable, so checked it himself and couldn't find anything. So, he had J look inside again. Still nothing. But Lithus looked inside himself again. Yep. Tail boom attachment was broken. This is a nonsurvivable situation from the air. Had he gotten up, which he could have in spite of this, he would've died that day.

We pretend that what he does isn't dangerous. And the vast majority of the time, we succeed in forgetting. Then, something like this happens. It's good to be lucky. It's better to be skilled. It's best to be both.

Home Construction by Aviators

Friends of ours, BossMan and LadyBoss, are building a house out on Big Lake, about 1 1/2 hours outside of Anchorage. The spot they've picked out is really beautiful, up on the top of the hill, overlooking the lake. They've been planning it all winter, prepping the property and bringing in the parts and pieces, getting ready for spring and building season.

Last week, BossMan asked Lithus if he would come out Saturday and help get everything up the hill because the spring thaw was coming about three weeks early this year. The lake was melting, which is fine ~ unless the parts of your house are scattered on it like so many legos on a living room floor. So, with the help of a third line pilot, BossMan and Lithus cleared the lake of the house. It looked like this:




The trailer they've been staging out of.



BossLady is at the end of their pier. Yes, we are all standing on lake.





What the view will be eventually



The ice road across the lake. Yes, I'm driving our firebird. On a lake.

As I told Lithus on the drive home, while it might have just been another day for those guys, for the rest of the world, it was a really cool day.