Coolest. Day. EVER!!!

But first, let me start with Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday consisted of swamping and chipping, as per usual. On Wednesday, we finally did something different with Open Space. The two teams split up and Earth 5 went off to do trail work. We helped reroute a trail by cutting the edges and starting to even out the trail surface. It was pretty challenging, but it was definitely nice to do something other than swamp. Swamping for Open Space is a little different than swamping for the Forest Service, the main difference being that I don’t mind doing it with the Forest Service. Heh.

After work, we had dinner and then a bunch of us headed down into Ned to one of the local pubs because there are some Forest Service people celebrating their birthdays this week. So we went to wish them Happy Birthdays and to hang out. It was a good time. While we were there, Ervin showed up and told me that I would have to get up early the next morning because I wasn’t reporting to work. Instead, M Squared, Harrison and I would be going to a local airport in Bloomfield (a town just outside of Boulder) where we would be helping out with tanker airplanes. Well, say no more!

So the next morning, we left around 8 am and headed down to Bloomfield. We managed to find the main airport, but it took another half an hour to find the office we were looking for. Once we finally got there, we immediately got to work. We spent most of the day tearing open 50 lb buckets of powdered retardant – made up of diammonium sulfate and ammonium phosphates (yes, I had occasion to look) – and dumping them into a giant mixer that added water to the whole thing. Once the mixing tank was full, we pumped the mixture into 11,000-gallon holding tanks (there were two that we could hook up to at the time). I texted Nikki at one point during the day to see how the rest of the team was doing. Apparently we missed a PT hike. That’s the third week in a row that I haven’t gone on one; the first time was because I was on break, the second time we skipped it because of the weather. I am so screwed for next week.

Now, if Mike Rowe wants a Dirty Job, I definitely have one for him. First of all, that retardant tastes and smells terrible. Even with a mask on, it gets up into your nose and eyes because it creates dust clouds every time you dump a bucket into the mixer. It was also a bit windy that day. I was pink by the end of the day. My arms were so red that they looked like I had second degree sunburn. My face felt like I had three layers of dollar-store make up on and my hair was a strange tinge of pink. My Nomex are filthy.

That being said, it was all totally worth it when, at one point, we heard this loud rumbling and turned around just in time to see a fighter jet buzz the airport (sorry Dad, I don’t know what kind it was and it was so obviously fast that I didn’t get a chance to get a picture). We also got to help load tanker planes with retardant every time they flew in. We loaded one plane five times! We filled another plane once when it finally arrived from Albuquerque. As we were leaving, both planes came back to fill up again. So that’s eight fills in one day. They were going to fires in Pueblo, CO; some of the crew we were working with said that apparently the fires just blew up overnight. Dispatch might be a possibility, but we’ll see.

But the absolute best was that at the end of the day, we were going to leave around 8 pm but we waited for another tanker to land so they would take us up inside the plane! It was so awesome. The plane’s mechanic said it was from 1954-55, and most of the plane was still original, right down to the seatbelts. It was so awesome, we got to sit in the cockpit and everything.

It really was the coolest day ever, especially for me because airplanes are one of my favorite things in the world. I love watching them even more than flying in them. I hope to have pictures up shortly.