Flying home for Christmas...

# I take a look at the passenger next to me,
# He's just the same,
# Just the same.

So we are in Santa Barbara for the holidays. After a long flight we arrived on the 20th December. Actually, it was a really long flight for Erin because whenever she fell asleep I would set my watch back 20 minutes at a time. 6 hours into our 11 hour flight she thought we had only been flying for 4 hours! Poor girl.

Mid-flight - Quite the view (Can you see the curvature of the earth?)

4 x Rolls-Royce RB211s powering us across the
Atlantic with 60,000 lbf of thrust

First class baby!

Before anyone asks, no I did not buy us first class tickets coming home. $13,000 return EACH is a little beyond what my purse-strings can stretch to. $900 each already hurts enough. But we did get to enjoy all the perks of the first-class cabin thanks to my strategic seat selection. This is the plane we flew on:

Boeing 747-400

I got us into two of the 36 economy class seats in the upper deck which, even though its a little more cramped, offers you the ability to roam around the first-class cabin (only without the lie-flat beds). So we got to spend as much time as we wanted at the bar downstairs hoarding all the free organic chocolates and cocktails and champagne.

Check out this video for a real idea of how impressive this beast is. 400 people in this tube barreling forward at 600mph.

She is awfully happy to be here. It's great to be with family and this has been a very relaxed holiday. Our to-do list has been simple and enjoyable. Lots of sour patch kids, reeses, coffee bean vanilla lattes (I even bought the powder), Habit burgers, yogurtlands, stadiums at SBCC, tennis, beach volleyball etc.

We even launched a rocket from Cape Goleta. Check this thing out. Chief Engineer - Jon Dohm.

Launch site @ D.P.

Ground Control counting down to launch from Cape Goleta

Contact lost with the vessel

Astronauts recovered! Mission successful.

Jeeez! Santa Barbara is no place to write a blog!! See ya!