Killing time in Missouri and Illinois

With a flight cancellation in the morning on Wednesday, I found myself in St. Louis for an extra 6 hrs, 4 of which without a hotel room. So instead of burning the evening oil and working all afternoon to then be followed by a 1.5 hrs flight, time spent clearing customs in Toronto and then a 1.5 hr drive to Peterborough I decided to make the most of the nice spring weather and do some exploring. My destination - Cahokia Mounds just across the river in Illinois. 

The mounds were the site of the largest community in the US until 1800 when Philladelphia had more than 30,000 residents. Pretty amazing that such a native community was built in the mid-west. 

The State Park spans several hundred acres where you can stroll along paved sidewalks on 1, 6.5 and 10 mile loops. As I only had an hour and a half to kill, I opted for an abbreviated hike around to see some of the mounds. 

The mounds range from burial mounds to the footings for large structures used by the most important residents. 

The tallest mound is Monks Mound and rises 100 ft above the surrounding landscape. 

Here are some pictures.

Monks Mound inside the interpretive centre

Monks Mound

155 steps later - on top

Top of descent

Now, time to watch a movie and catch some zzz's on this flight home from Toronto. 

So this is what it is all about...

I had one of those revelation moments that you only experience a few times in your life.  Let me explain.

In aircraft certification, there is a design standard that prohibits the installation of doors between passenger compartments. The reason is to provide occupants the best chance of survival after an emergency landing. The technical term is called "egress" - you want to have no obstructions in the aisle, or egress path, to enable rapid evacuation from the aircraft. 

On business jets, this is not desirable. VIP clients (or the ultra, high-end VVIP) want privacy. Curtains are one form but so too are interior doors. On many of the aircraft that we certify, we approve an interior door with the use of an exemption to the design requirements. In order to get an exemption, you need to include other design features to provide an alternate level of safety. One such requirement is for the door to be frangible. 

Today I (almost) experienced this first hand. As I was conducting my interior evaluation, I had to test one such interior door, to make sure it opens and closes and to check for some other things which I am not at liberty to discuss ;). I closed the door and tried to open. No luck - the door opened about 3-4".

I'm skinny but not that skinny.  I tried again, letting the door close fully and then tried opening the door. Same deal - opens 3-4". 

Hmm, interesting. This will be a snag... When I get to my iPad on the other side of the door...

I try a third time. No dice. This time I notice that it is the lower part of the door that seems to be jamming - I've heard of this happening before. Ok, maybe I can wiggle/lift/shake the door to get it to close. I try again - no luck, still stick. (Lola should be laughing right now...)

Maybe, if I go fast the door will open. I let the door close and give more force than previously to open. Nopers - still only 3-4" opening.

At this point, I realize this is exactly why the door is frangible - in case the door is jammed from opening fully after an emergency landing.  Well, not exactly the reason - we don't expect the door to jam often but maybe because the airplane has had an emergency landing and the fuselage may have deformed, causing the door to release from its latches and close and further become jammed shut. 

I try two more times, hoping that miraculously the door opens more and allow me to pass through it to call the aircraft supervisor that there is something wrong. Yes, I was mildly insane - giving the same input and expecting different results.  I'm still One Duck Stuck. 

These business jets have lots of soundproofing to drown out the ambient noise of the air rushing across the fuselage for many hours. Yelling won't do anything. It's not like there are windows I can crank down either. There is a baggage door that I could open and yell out, but why do that when I can use my iPhone. 

I didn't have the aircraft supervisor's phone number but did have someone else's number who would. So I call my contact and explain the predicament I'm in. I think I heard her laugh...

Within two mins, three guys show up on the aircraft and free me. Turns out they were having issues with the door jamming so they knew the trick to free it. They also claim this is the first time this has happened to the - where a Transport Canada or FAA representative were essentially trapped by the door. I joked with them telling the, good thing they showed up, I was about to kick down the door. 

All in all, I egress and am safe and sound. I guess you could say that this was a rather elaborate way to have the interior technicians available to test the Overwing exit...

Need to go back

Arizona Adam reporting from Missouri (St. Louis). 

One of my ex coworkers, who now works for Transport Canada showed me quite possibly the coolest looking museum here in Downtown St. Louis. 

You can apparently walk all around the monuments put together by local artists using old, recycled materials including a crane, old fire truck, airplane, an old church dome, etc, etc, etc. Maybe if I need to come back in a couple of weeks I'll carve out some time to spend here walking around. 

Until then, I can only imagine how cool that ball pit is...

The trip home - Back to the land of snow and ice

Well it was a successful trip home despite DD not feeling the greatest, and not sure if he was quite with himself.  MB gave him some medication to allow him to make it through the flight.  He may have fallen asleep 2 times before we even got to get in the plane.  He also was very determined to get some Jube Jubes, if is very weird for DD to want.  He was no successful, as all the stores were closing as we made it to the gate.

It was a nice thought that AA and DD dropped the ladies and twinkies off at departures and went and returned the van.  We waited a while, T just chilled, B was not happy to go home, cried a lot, and just wanted to be free.  She ventured along the long walk way, that was empty to kill time while we waited.

We didn't want to go home.

Eventually we got to the gate, after getting our luggage checked in, finding out our flight was delayed by an hour.  Trying to keep the babies awake was a challenge, but we managed.  We even got DD to eat a rice cake.

We decide that on the flight, Mell would have to take care of Devin and a Twinkie, while Aa and Lola would take a Twinkie.  Lola took the one that wasn't teething, and a much better cuddler being B.  

T got 2 teeth in about 3 days... Here is a shot of his growing teeth.

The flight was almost an hour shorter than usual as we had strong tail winds. B, AA and Lola slept the whole way, while MB had to deal with T screaming a few times in the middle of the night.  We all did well.  DD felt better after he slept on the flight.  Flight from Vancouver to Winnipeg was pretty uneventful as well as we all slept again.  Here are a few shots we took.

B definitely got comfy sprawled on Lola and AA's lap.

We were not so happy to be home, but we had a great time.

When asked what the favorite thing was... We all had different answers, all enjoyed the weather, the sunshine, majority of the food and great company.

Till next time...

Mahalo 

Lola