Bad few days for SAR and FD, more challenges ahead

The past few days have brought sadness, and reminders of why we keep doin' what we do.

Saturday: 2 FDNY members of E24/L5 died at the Deutsche Bank building fire; a fire that shouldn't have started or spread so fast in a building that should have been torn down by now; a building still haunted by the ghosts of 11 other members of E24/L5 and 332 other FDNY brothers.

Friday: 3 rescuers were killed in the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah. A good friend from Utah's Dept. of Homeland Security tells me one of the six trapped miners is a volunteer fireman.

Thursday: 3 Marines and a sailor died when their Huey crashed during SAR training in Yuma, AZ.

Meanwhile, an earthquake in Peru, fires in the western US, a hurricane in the Carribean, flooding in the midwest, in India, Korea, China, and elsewhere...

"If I chose this profession, I could ask to be paid for it, but I am called by God to do this work." 1 Corinthians 9

Chillin' at Grandma's & Pop-Pop's

Sunday was as simple as we predicted, but gobs of fun. We "churched" with the Smarts and had a great visit afterwards at their house. John convinced me why Patty and I want to go to Tucson in October for the 30th Anniversary celebration of my Phi Kappa Psi fraternity chapter. Rosemary really impressed John with her knowledge of airplanes (unfortunately she has limited flight time in fighter jets, but she held his attention anyway).

Then we were off to Blauvelt, NY. One of the 8 FDNY officers with whom I attended the FEMA Master Exercise Practitioner courses at the National Fire Academy has become a great friend, and he has two boys John's age, so we hoped they'd get a long. They were nervously shy, for about three minutes, and five hours later we couldn't pry them apart.

Soon after we met up with him, he received a call asking him to respond, along with others of FDNY's command post planning section, to help staff the command post of the major wildland fires in Montana. He put plans together and ended up leaving at 0700 Monday morning. I couldn't help thinking of the phone call like that that I got back in October of 2005. "What's your schedule like the next few weeks? I need you to go to New Orleans..." Understanding wives are indeed gifts from heaven.

On Monday I left for NYC and the real business of the trip, and left John watching "Night at the Museum" at Grandma's. They have tentative plans to go to the Statue of Liberty, maybe the NJ State Fair, and maybe play more with the Flatley boys from Blauvelt.

I'll get back to Closter Thursday evening and we head for home Friday, which includes a stop in Adelphia to meet up with my best friend and John's Godfather, Harry Carter.

home... the sound of it is sweet.

Day 16 - lounging at Grandma's

Today was lazy day. John and I both swam in the pool, and nothing much more strenuous than that. We went out to dinner at one of G&P's favorites, Andiamo in Haworth. Tomorrow it's Church with the Smarts and then off to Blauvelt to visit one of my FDNY friends and his family.

Day 15 - Ottawa to Grandma's

I asked John what he wanted to do today, and he said, "Go to Grandma's." I tempted him with visiting the Canadian War Museum (recommended by the former schoolteacher who sat next to us at the Lynx game last night), the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology, and the HQ of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "Grandma's" he said.

So we drove over the border and through parts of Adirondack State Park in New York. We stopped at the visitor center and got information on hiking, fishing, and even some rappelling sites. "Grandma's" he said. So off we drove.

We got caught in a tremendous downpour near the southern end of the New York State Throughway, all the way to Closter, arriving about 10:00 pm. John was happy.

Day 14 - North Bay to Ottawa

Today was museum day - we drove to the Canadian military base at Petawawa (100 kilometers north of Ottawa) and toured the museum there. It wasn't much. Then we went on to Ottawa and drove straight to the National Aviation Museum. John loved the display of jets. I liked seeing the P51 Mustang, and some rescue helicopters.

After checking into our hotel in Ottawa at 6, we were wondering what to do. I thought that Ottawa had to have a minor league ball team, so I googled it, and found that they do, and that they were hosting the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Yankees tonite! So off we went to the park. Not only did we get 3rd row seats behind the on-deck circle, but it was 25c hot dog night! The Lynx lost to the Yankees 5-2 but we had a great evening in a very pleasant ball park.

We're still not sure what our plans are for tomorrow. More stuff to look at here, lingering in the Adirondacks, or drive hard to Closter to see Grandma and Pop-pop. Stay tuned!

Day 13 - Crossing in to Canada

John and I agreed that we'd have a very loose itinerary for the next few days. In fact, we didn't even book a room in advance for this evening. Our basic plan was to steam across Ontario to Petawawa, home of the Canadian Airborne Forces Museum.

That plan lasted about five minutes after we crossed into Canada (are all Canadian Customs agents pretty?). Driving along the main street in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario, we saw an airplane hanging off the side of a building, spun around the block, and pulled into the parking lot of the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre (they spell things funny up here). We spent the next two hours climbing into seaplanes, watching a movie, and learning about fighting fires with airplanes (which, while frightening, seems a whole lot more civilized than doing it with a shovel).

We finally headed west on Canada's Highway 17 about 1pm, then stopped for lunch in Bruce Mines. The first 150 kilometers or so east to Blind River was pretty flat, boring, and not very prosperous. After Blind River things got a bit hillier, greener, and pretty.

We decided to spend the night in North Bay, since we didn't think we'd find a motel between there and Petawawa. We got a room in the brand new Holiday Inn. We think we're the first people to actually use this room. We ordered pizza in and relaxed early. Tomorrow it's the museum, then on to Ottawa for more fun guy stuff.

Day 12 - Wisconsin and the UP

We left Dot's today and headed across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We're pretty sure we saw a wolf cross the road, about halfway between Ironwood and Marquette. It looked pretty healthy, but then the deer we saw cross the road a little earlier looked pretty healthy, too, so we think those mammals just grow bigger up here.

Our primary stop was the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, MI. What we found out during this visit was that, right around the time of our first visit there 12 years ago, divers were recovering the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald which sank near here with 29 souls in 1975.

Later we hugged the shore of Whitefish Bay on our way to Sault Ste. Marie. I remembered a great small casual seafood restaurant where we ate 12 years ago. We found it near Iroquois Light and ate there again! We met the owner, who just came in from his boat and enjoyed sharing the history of his family and the restaurant. Stuffed, we left there and headed on to Sault Ste. Marie.

At the locks we got to see three ships pass through in front of us within about an hour, and then retired (quite late) to our hotel on the American side.