Tiger Boys

Nothing like 12 year old Scotch in a plastic Solo cup just a couple hours before the "Star Party"

In September 2011 I had an opportunity to attend the annual "fly-in" put on by the "Tiger Boys" in Guelph, Ontario.  This event is a gathering of nearly 100 antique aircraft and the people who enjoy them.  I spent the day walking around the airport admiring and photographing some fantastic old airplanes.  There were airplane rides available for a nominal fee.  While I did not partake in the airplane rides, I did accept the invitation to stay until after dark and enjoy the "Star Party".  This was where our host, Glenn, gave the dozen or so people who were there a bit of an education on the star-filled, night sky.  The entire day and evening was a terrific experience where I met some friends for the first time in person and made some new ones as well.

A pair of Tiger Moths patiently waiting

Cheers, Eh!

YVR

The Flying Beaver Bar & Grill

Located on the north bank of the Fraser River is a bar & grill that is probably #1 on my list of favorite places to relax and have a beer.  The Flying Beaver is actually located in the "South Terminal" of the YVR Airport.  As you make your way into the always busy bar, you'll most likely pass a few airline passengers making their way either on or off a float plane going to and from the more remote locations in British Columbia.  

The 'Beaver' has a great selection of brews and excellent food.  The servers are all friendly and to top it all off, the Otters, Twin Otters, Beavers and who knows what else are departing and arriving right outside the window.  There's just something about floatplanes that just get to me.  I really need to take some time in the near future and obtain my float plane rating.  

Any time you find yourself in the Vancouver, BC area, I highly recommend making your way down to the water's edge and enjoy!

Cheers, Eh!

The loading dock in front of the Flying Beaver

It's not Pharaoh...

In my room at the Cairo Intercontinental

...that I didn't get to see the pyramids.


One of the trips I was on in the last couple years had me flying from Tashkent, Uzbekistan to Cairo, Egypt and back.  The layover we had was quite short and consequently there wasn't time to see any of the unique sights that Egypt has to offer, specifically the pyramids.  I did get a good view of the Nile river as we were on the arrival into the airport but aside from that, it was just a dirty, polluted city with armed men on most of the street corners.  I do think it'd be fun to explore some of the more interesting places of Egypt but having seen what little I did see, I'm not really going to be too heartbroken if I never return.  If I do find myself there again someday, I'll definitely make an effort to see the pyramids and the other touristy places that it has to offer.


Fe Sahetek!

The Vibration of Youth

The infamous "Vy Bar"

During my employment with Korean Air I was housed with 400+ other expat pilots at the Hyatt Hotel located at the Incheon Airport. It is a very nice hotel and as much time as I have spent in hotels around the world, I've seen some pretty good ones, and some awful ones too.


In the rear of the lobby at the Incheon Hyatt, there is a dark corner where if you're curious enough to venture back there, you'll find the entrance to the "Vy Bar".  This gathering place is very dungeon-like and is almost entirely empty every night.  Generally, the only few patrons of this establishment are the expat pilots whom live at the hotel, and even then it's typically only on what we like to call "Lady Night".  It's advertised as "Ladies Night" but considering that every time the only woman in the place is the bartender, it really is a misnomer.  


The expats would gather here every so often to commiserate and tell various stories/lies to each other... and one question had gone unanswered for a long time.  What the hell did the "Vy" stand for in the name of the bar?  As pilots we were taught since day 1 of ground school that "Vy" was the "best rate of climb" for a given airplane but that really couldn't be what they were referring to, right?  Well one evening, one of the guys asked a hotel employee about this and he told us that it stood for "the vibration of youth".  Um, excuse me?  What?  To this day I still don't fully understand what that means or how it has any real correlation to this dark and dingy hotel bar, but I guess I can just add it to the long list of things the Koreans did that baffled me.


Gun Bae!

Once In A Lifetime

Poolside at the resort

One of the more exotic and interesting locations I was able to visit not too long ago was the Maldives.  You may be silently asking yourself, “now, where in the hell are the Maldives?”… and you would not be alone.  I say that because that’s exactly what I said when I found out I was flying a trip there.  I had to rely on the good ‘ol internet to find out this information.  It turns out that the Maldives are a collection of roughly 1200 or so small islands located about 250 nautical miles west of Sri Lanka out in the Indian Ocean.  It holds the distinction of being the country with the lowest average elevation of something like 5 feet.  It is a concern to the people of this country that as ice caps melt and the ocean levels rise that they will eventually have an average elevation of zero… or less.  It’s enough of a concern that the people in charge of these sorts of things have made arrangements with neighboring India and have acquired some land as a place to relocate in the future.  I’m sure that’s going to go over well.

Let me first say that flying an aircraft carrying nearly 300 people and landing on a runway that occupies nearly one entire island is an interesting experience.  The runway was plenty long enough and plenty wide enough… it just seemed much smaller than it truly was.  The blue/green waters surrounding the airport island made it tough to concentrate on the task of actually flying the visual approach and landing because it was so beautiful to look at.

Once off the airplane, in order to get to the city of Male, (pretty much the only city in the Maldives), from the airport you had to get on a water taxi and ride it for about 20 minutes to the next island over.  The resort we stayed at happened to be on the same small island as the airport so I didn’t need to go to Male, but once I was settled into my room and put my tropical clothing on I hopped on a water taxi anyway just to go check it out.  It turned out to not be anything too special as far as cities go but I bought a couple trinkets anyway and headed back to the resort. 

During my 3 day layover I was able to visit one of the nearby island resorts.  The entire crew and I took a speedboat ride for about 45 minutes to get to the all-expenses paid resort.  I enjoyed great food and drinks with the crew and did a little snorkeling as well. 

Once back to “our” resort, I spent most of the time out at the pool.  I met up with a few of the pilots who fly the inter-island float planes at the resort and discovered that most of them were either from Canada or Australia.  They were quick with a story and were a blast to share a few drinks with. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the Maldives.  I’m not too sure I’d travel to the other side of the planet JUST to go there specifically in the future, since there are places much closer to home that offer the same basic experience… but if I happen to find myself there again for some reason I won’t complain one bit.


Tulleeho!

Still hanging by the pool

Making Do

At the "Epi-Center" in Klamath Falls, OR

Not always do I travel to exotic locales.  In fact, many of the photos I've taken were in locations that had little to offer in terms of entertainment or scenery.  Klamath Falls, Oregon is one of these places.  Oh, it has it's good attributes, especially if you like fishing and other outdoor activities.  I do enjoy those things but my visits to K-Falls have generally been too short to partake in them.  (There was a time when I spent many days each month in Klamath Falls when I worked at my first airline job... but that's another story.)  The backwoods, "Walmart" mentality of most of the residents of K-Falls just makes it hard for me to enjoy visiting there.  So when I found myself there a year ago on a short-ish layover, I walked from the hotel to the bowling alley next door.  It's your typical bowling alley and I enjoy rolling a few down the lane once in awhile.  On the evening of the above photo, my scores ranged from 107 to 186 over 6 games but the best part of the evening was getting this cool shot of the lane when they turned the lights down low and gave the pins a prominent, defiant glow.  Of course I knocked 'em all down shortly after this shot was taken.


Cheers!

A Little Help From My Friends

Jenn has the right idea

During my travels I occasionally will share my "liquid world" idea with the people I'm traveling with and I always get a genuinely positive response.  One of the Flight Attendants I flew with, named Jenn, who liked the idea started sending me photos of her own "liquid world" experiences and I must say that I really liked the one posted above.  I believe she said this was taken at one of the Seattle "Joey" locations.  

So, I guess this means that I'm open to not only sharing MY travels with you, but if you wish to send me a cool shot of one of your own, I might post it as well.  (send it to trailmoto@gmail.com).  I do ask, however to possibly include an interesting detail or story along with your photo so I can post something other than just a picture.

Cheers!

Look Ma, No Booze!

Discovery Kartika Resort, Bali

One of the concerns I had starting this project was that it may make me appear to be a raging alcoholic.  While definitions of the word "alcoholic" may vary, I'm certain that I'm not.  But to help illustrate that the point of this hobby of mine is not as much about the contents of my glass, but more about when, where and why the photos are taken, I submit the photo above.  Of course I have no way to prove this, but the glass in the photo above contained a lemon-lime soda of some sort.  It contained no mind-altering spirits of any kind.  The surrounding scenery, however, was mind-altering.  It was a very relaxing and stress-free place to just dip your toes in the water and think about the important things in life.  I spent quite a few 24 hour layovers in Bali at the Kartika Resort and I always left there in a better state of mind than when I arrived.


Pro!

My Inner "Red Neck"

Enjoying a Yuengling at Maple Grove

One of my interests include NHRA Professional Drag Racing.  As much as I'd love to actually race a nitro burning race car, I'll have to settle for watching them from the stands, unless something weird happens and I get an offer to drive one... not likely.  The above shot is from Maple Grove  Raceway in Mohnton, Pennsylvania, (near Reading).  The "DHL" funny car on the track heating up it's tires is one of the Kalitta Motorsports cars driven by Jeff Arend.  The owner of Kalitta Motorports, Conrad Kalitta is  also my boss at Kalitta Air so you know I typically am rooting for all the Kalitta cars to do well.  I do have a friend "in the racing biz" so I also like to cheer on their team as well.  He even has a well-established blog that you ought to check out if you're at all interested in the drag racing world, or just like to enjoy some good writing.

The beer selections at racetracks around the country are generally not very good, in my opinion, and you may have to take out a second mortgage to be able to afford said brews but that is just part of the track experience I guess.  Even being an on again, off again "beer snob" from the Pacific NW, I have to say that I do enjoy a Yuengling whenever I'm on the east coast and the Lager I sampled at Maple Grove did hit the spot.


Cheers!

Unintended Coolness

Old Town Sacramento, CA

Over the last two years of taking pictures of various drinks around the world, I have come to realize that the pictures that I enjoy the most either are from a special/unique location, or have an unintended subject in the background.  The photo above was taken during the spring of 2011 in a small comedy club/bar in Old Town Sacramento.  It's hard to tell from the picture but the room was actually brightly lit by a setting sun blazing through the big front windows of the establishment.  The camera on my phone apparently couldn't handle all the light and filtered out what it didn't like.  The product of this lighting was, in my opinion, pretty cool.  The funny thing about this picture though is that even after transferring it to my laptop and viewing it a few times, I didn't realize that my reflection in the large mirror behind the bar was visible.  For whatever reason I found this unintentional photo of myself to be a great shot.  Probably because it was just that, unintentional.  I'm pretty sure that it was at this point that I realized that these photos I've been taking aren't about the actual drink in the photo but more about what might be in the periphery.  I've tried to be more cognizant of the surroundings since that time and I think the shots have improved because of that.


I've also posted another shot from the same evening below that I also really like.  The frost on the glass created some cool shadows.


Cheers!

A Creative Outlet

The view from Dave's beer includes his beautiful wife, Mandy

Nearly 2 years ago I was inspired by a photograph taken by my friend, Dave.  (His photo is posted above and he posted it online with the caption "A View From My Beer")  I thought it was a cool idea and because I travel for a living I thought I could maybe I could take this artistic idea and use it to help document a lot of my travels around the world.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this new idea, specifically, but I decided to just take the pictures and figure it out later.  Initially I thought I might create a coffee table book or something like that but in today's world of e-books and blogs, I figured the only way to really share my experiences with my friends and family was to use an electronic format.  So here it is, "A Liquid World".


My intent is merely to allow you a quick peek into some of my travels using the "eyes" of my glass.  I hope to have a few interesting stories to accompany the photos that are posted.  Feel free to comment or ask questions about any or all of them.


Cheers!