Day 19

It's hard to believe I've been down here for 19 days. It definitely doesn't feel that long but looking back I guess that is right. We have accomplished a lot in that time, so much that I should be able to leave on Thursday I'm thinking. 

I've probably already posted that but I guess that just means I'm looking forward to going home. Well, sort of. It will be nice to be back home and back in the office. I won't miss the weather or seeing the plane each day. But after 15 months on the same project, it is time to end. For the better of both of us... Me and the plane. 

Food is already here 5 mins after ordering. WOW. 

Lindy's

This morning and early afternoon was spent at work helping with some quick updates and answering questions. I also was able to finish off some of my manuals by checking some things in the airplane. Almost done!

I'm downtown waiting for my burger to arrive. Eating at Lindys on Fourth. Gwen suggested it so here I am. The menu was pretty impressive. Many burgers and you can have one, two or three patties. I elected for one. And a kilt lifter:

It's pretty good. 

This week will be busy. Transport is coming down and we are finishing off some testing. I'm going to book my return ticket home for Thursday so I can go to the jets game and be home for one of our playoff games for hockey.  The first one is on Tuesday but I won't be there for that one. 

Tonight will be dinner with Jason. Not sure where but I'll meet him at his place at 6. 

As I'm killing time, I found some photos that weren't posted:

I went to Park Place mall yesterday where they were having a sidewalk art expo. Pretty cool. 

I probably should have walked around the entire mall to see whatelse there was but u was expecting a call from Mark to go for dinner yesterday but he never called. 

Instead I went to Mimi's Cafe and had chicken pot pie. It was good. And I saw this sign which made me smile:

Now, I need to find wifi to post this...

Saturday morning

I'm hoping to have a relatively relaxing weeknd. Have some work to do but only a few hours I'm thinking. Other than this bit sure what the plan will be. 

I was invited for dinner tonight with one of the guys from work and tomorrow I'm going to go for dinner with Jason. Other than this, should be relatively quiet. 

It's looking like I should be able to come home Thursday this week. Things should be wrapping up by then and the only remaining activities can be done back in Winnipeg. In fact I probably would have gotten more work done back home than I am here but as long as the customer sees a benefit the I guess I'm doing my job. 

No much else to write about yet. I've only had a sip of coffee and a bagel. Not quite the same as the Montreal bagels but the weather is rather nice here. 

Hiking

This morning, Doug and I decided to play hooky from work. The airplane is not ready, no flight permit and not much we can do about it. I have things to do but have time to do them. 

So, we left our hotels at 7am and went to Catalina state park for a 5.5 mile hike. It was a perfect day for a hike, warm but not hot. Some breeze and pretty cool scenery:

Romero pools

Afterwards, we went back to our hotels, showered and grabbed lunch before going to bombardier. After an hour and a half, I drove Doug to the airport and went back to work until 5. Almost half a day worked, knocking my time bank down to 25 hrs since I've been here...

I'm currently doing laundry in a hotel across the street. My hotel has laundry services but I can wash my own socks and underware for the prices that they were going to charge (3.25 for a shirt, I'm doing all my shirts, socks and underware for $6 which includes the soap). Yes, even though I could charge this to the job, I still feel guilty spending that kind of money on laundry. Instead, I'll charge for incidentals.

I may be looking into going to Phoenix on Tuesday to watch the Jets 1.0 play the Jets 2.0. I'll give my buddy josh a call to see if he can set me up with some good tickets. This josh guy calls every month or two trying to sell me coyotes tickets...

Hope you all are looking forward to the warm weather coming up this weekend. 

Waiting

This seems to be the name of the game - waiting.  We are waiting for paperwork to get caught up so the airplane can fly on a flight permit. We are also waiting for a new flight permit as the current one expires tomorrow. I'm waiting for my computer to finish updating and Doug to return from his phone call.

Here are some photos of the quiet empty office:

The view out my cubicle looking into the electrical cubicle

Looking towards the mechanical cubicles 

Looking towards Elmer's cubicle (the project engineer for this project)

It's kind of nice not having the pressure on my right now. We are ready, now it is a matter of when the airplane will be ready. Many systems still need to be troubleshooted but that is up to production to keep turning them on and making sure they work properly. 

Anyways, weather is kind of cloudy today and windy but still pleasant. I'm getting hungry and Doug is back now. Hopefully we can leave soon. 

Hope all is well back home. 

Lola's Last Day

Well it is almost time for me, Lola to head back to the great white north.

Today I got woken up by the sound of fighter jets doing circuits, but it wasn't too early, like 8:00. So I headed down for some breakfast and then sat by the pool until just before 9:30. I wanted to get to the mall when it opened to maximize the amount of time there. On the way to the mall I stopped at hobby lobby to look around, I could have bought a lot if only I had more room in my carry on suitcase. So left there with nothing and headed to the Park Avenue Mall.  

I did a little shopping, picked up some clothes at banana republic and H&M and then headed to mcdonalds in the food court to get some sweet tea before heading to pick up Adam and his coworker Doug to grab some lunch.

Picked them up at Bombardier and then headed over to Red Lobster for lunch.  We had a good time, but you could tell Arizona Adam is stressed about work and sad that Lola is leaving.

Lola is also sad to be leaving, but have to get back to work.  Once lunch was over I dropped the boys back at Bomardier and headed back to the hotel.  Packed my bag, talked to my parents on FaceTime and now chilling by the pool for the last minutes I have left before having to get to the airport.

Well that's it for me folks, as Adam has to blog now, since I am leaving the iPad with him.

goin' to Winnipeg,

Lola

Southern Tucson Adventures

Today we traveled a lot by car, but saw a lot of different sights southern Tucson.

We went to the Collosal Caves. Pictures below...

Next stop was mcdonalds for lunch:)

Then off to Mount Lemmon. It started at 82*F and at the top was down to 50*F.

We went through many climates/biomes?? Not sure what they are called right now, but they are all in the photo below.

Semi desert

Oak woodland

The next 3 photos are from windy point vista.

Pine forest

Top of mount Lemmon, mixed conifer forest, which had a Forrest fire in 2003, caused my a cigarette butt.

Here is where the cottages were, almost at the top 7000 ft. It is called Summerhaven, it was pretty cool!

There was even a little snow at the top, Arizona Adam was pretty excited, Lola not so much.

Then we headed back down! The views were spectacular! It was a long but excellent day!

After our adventure we went out for some Mexican food and now getting ready for bed.

Here is the sunset we saw on the way to dinner.

Lola is leaving tomorrow, and Arizona Adam has to go back to work.

Good night,

Lola and Arizona Adam

4th Ave Street Fair

Saturday was a day full of sun and friends and lots of walking.

Lola was up at 7:00am and couldn't sleep any longer so she watched tv while Arizona Adam sleep a few hours more.  

Once AA got up we headed to breakfast. And then packed up and headed into the city. First stop was to see the rattlesnake bridge.

It was pretty neat, except for the homeless guy at the head end.  The tail even made rattling sounds when you walked through the end.  What a neat way to incorporate the nature into the bridge!  Haven't seen any real ones yet, but maybe that will be part of today's adventure.

After the bridge we headed to university of Arizona to check out the campus and bookstore.

And of course find the engineering building.

Then to the highlight of the day, the 4th Avenue Street Fair.  We went to this last year when Lola came for a visit.  First things first we got some Fair food.

Adam had a sausage while Lola tried to attempt to eat all those potato chips.  And of course the Arnold Palmer (iced tea and lemonade).  The coolest part about the fair is you can just drink beer/wine on the street.

As we were sitting enjoying our food, Adam looks over and sees his former coworker, and friend Jason and his fiancé Katie (who he usually hangs out with when he is down here). So he goes over, and says hi, they come over to join us and then we spend the rest of the day together with them!

We walked around the fair 2 times stopping and buying a few things. (We bought way less than Jason and Katie but that Is because we have to fly home...)

There were lots if people but we had a great time, and got a little bit of sun!

After the fair we went to The Hub with Jason and Katie, and went to visit their new place.  The city lights from their place was amazing.  We didn't stay long as Katie is a nurse and had been working nights, so had been up for over 24 hours.

Here is the view as we drove back to the hotel. (Not a great photo as Adam took it with his phone)

Well we are about to head out for the day. Checking out breakfast, Mount Lemon and Collousal Caves.

Time to put on the sunscreen!

Lola

Lola in Arizona

Well since Arizona Adam missed blogging yesterday I am sure the readers are wondering why.  Well I really don't know I guess nothing really happened yesterday. He worked a lot and then went out with some people from Bombardier in Tucson and talked to me.

Well I travelled to sunny and warm Tucson today! Her is a little about my adventure.

Blair was generous to pick me up bright and early this morning, 5:45, so that I could make it to the airport for 6:00am. My flight left at 7:30.  American security was short staffed or inexperienced this morning, standing in a line that isn't moving because there was a backlog of luggage and people past the metal detector and people waiting to be pat down? Not really sure. But anyways, I had lots of time to get my steeped tea (have to enjoy it before going into the states where they don't have it).

Got on my westjet flight and headed to Tucson.  Here is a photo of Winnipeg if you forget what it looks like.

I watched the free PPV movie, "enough said" which was pretty good and then watched out the window for the rest of the flight.  Experiencing new sites from the airplane window.

Picture somewhere over Colorado.

Really cool ridge where I assume 2 tectonic plate have hit:)

Coolest part was flying over parts of the Grand Canyon.  I have never seen this before but so neat to see it out of the plane window! It does remind me of the canyon we saw in Kuaui, which they called the Grand Canyon of Hawaii.  I took a lot of photos because it was so neat.  Here are a few more as I couldn't just pick one.

Eventually I made it to Phoenix. Which I also had never seen before.  It was weird to see this blue water in the middle of the desert. I am not sure what they use this water for but it still was neat to see.

There were so many developments and houses in Phoenix. What neat shapes the developments made from the Air.

Ate some food at the the airport and got onto my us expressway flight to Tucson to meet Adam. Landing in Tucson I got some photos of planes to ask Adam about :)

Arizona Adam then picked me up from the airport, took me to the car rental place to get me put onto the car then we ate at Denys for lunch.  I took him back to work and then ventured to some box stores to do a little shopping.  Ended up spending most time at Target, where I bought a new dress and some  food and drink for the hotel room!

To the hotel I went where I unpacked, watched some tv and then headed down to the pool where I currently still am:) happy to be in the sun getting some vitamin D. Lola has been lacking in that department so just to sit in the sun and blog feels pretty good.

I have to go pick up Adam at 4:30 from work, and then we have plans to go out for supper with his coworker Doug who is arriving at 5:30.  He is in town to do testing on the plane Adam has Been working on.

Our plan for the rest of the weekend is kind of up in the air.  My plan is to spend a lot of time outside.  It was 81*F when I got out if the car (no idea what the conversion), but I would say nice!  We plan on going to the 4th street festival that I went to last time I was down, so I am pretty excited:) but other than I think adam wants to take me up Mount Lemon.  But I guess you will have to wait and see:)

Time to turn over.

Cheers, 

Lola