Back from our quick jaunt to Phoenix. It was a much needed, thoroughly enjoyable trip that did a world of good. We opted to drive down there; it's a long way but it was fun. I think I would have been comfortable flying down there but Deanne and I both agreed that the drive would be a perfect opportunity to spend some time with each other, something we haven't been able to do in a long while.
One of the things I was able to do on the drive down was fulfil a lifelong ambition - well not lifelong but I've wanted to do it for a long time. Pay a visit to the Mojave Airport. MHV is home to one of America's largest airplane graveyards. Its dry conditions are perfect for preventing corrosion. There was a lot of history there, defunct airlines, defunct planes. Sleeping Giants. A truly amazing place. We rounded the corner on the freeway and knew that Mojave was coming up. I looked to my right and nearly drove off the road. On the horizon were hundreds of planes. It was a very surreal site. We immediately rerouted and made haste towards the airport. There were Virgin planes, KLM, Mandarin Airways, Swiss Air (Asia), Qantas, Ansett, a ton of Indonesian Airlines, and the usual array of USAir, Delta and FedEx. I snapped a ton of photos which you can find here.
We had an excellent time in Arizona with Stefan, Amrita and Jasdeep showing us all that Phoenix has to offer. It's a wonderful place and very inviting. I won't rehash what Deanne and Stefan have already covered on their sites, suffice to say that we had an awesome time.
It was also an educational trip. I was finally able to put a nearly year long mystery to rest. Jasdeep works for Honeywell, and it just so happens he works on the avionics for my favorite plane, the Boeing 777. Now those of you who religiously follow my blog may remember I had a post on a picture of a 777 with two 7" monitors jerry rigged into the flight deck. Well I asked Jasdeep what they were and he was able to tell me. They are MATS - Maintenance Access Terminals. Kinda like OBDII for your car. They interpret and display data from all of the test equipment in the back of the airplane. At last...
So anyway, a great trip, some opportunities presented and some good times had. Thanks to Stefan, Amrita and Jasdeep for showing us a good time. Thanks to Deanne for humoring me :)