Thursday, July 9...oh what to do today.... Overhead we hear a large aircraft, John looks up and sees a B-17 flying over. He thought that he had seen the airplane on the field at the local McCall Airport. We hopped in the car and off we went, and yes, there parked along the fence was the B-17. You could go on the tarmac and see the plane up close. It was a thing of beauty! My Dad had flown on the B-17 during the was from England as a navigator. For a mear $425 you could take a ride, however we declined. They really took excellent care of this old aircraft!
Also on the airport property are the "Smoke Jumpers". The men and women that jump and land near a forest fire to put out the fires. They offer free tours so we decided to see what they had to say. It was very interesting! There are 35,000 forest fires in the United States every year. About 12,000 are started by lightening, the rest by people. These men and women go through 5 weeks of training and then are ready to make their first jump and fight forest fires. We saw them pack their parachutes and the food packs and water packs
that are dropped to them. The parachutes last for 10 years or 100 jumps, whichever comes first. Another interesting day on the road.
That is all for now, we are off to Oregon and wine country.
Take care,
Candy and Johnny
