7/11/18 Wednesday

             I’m happy to say that today I woke up with joy, I just cannot get enough of our new campsite at Deschutes National Forest. I’m starting to get in the habit of waking up really early in the morning and changing in the freezing cold. But after what I learned and saw today makes it all worth it. Early morning we headed off to Redmond Oregon to meet Annie Wittenburg at Redmond Air Center. Annie is a heritage university alumni graduate that made today's visit possible for us. This air center is used by Redmond’s wildland fighter hotshots crew. Being an ex-wild land firefighter myself this visit was one of the most interesting tours that I have ever taken. First, we met Aron Olmos that provides specialized forest training. Then we met Mike Gomez who was a long time veteran of 39 years of firefighting experienced. They both provided an insight look of the air center and how they operate at a national level fighting wild forest fires. As they talked about their jobs and experiences and how much they loved their careers it made me happy and made me think of my dad who has been a wildland firefighter for well over 19 years.

              The next part of the tour was getting to meet the hotshot crew. To my dad these guys are idols and he holds them in such high respect. When I used to work in the fires I remember my crewmates calling them legends, the best of the best there is out there. So it was a privilege to have met two hotshot Rockies in training Sam Johnson and Dough. They showed us around the section of their base from the equipment they used and the best part was their suits. I was surprised that their entire suits only weighed 60 pounds. It was also interesting for me to learn that all of their equipment also gets parachuted to them. They took us on a tour of their parachutes and how they are made right in the air center by experts. But my favorite part of the tour was when Dough put on his fire suit, honestly I kind of got the chills because I was finally seeing a hotshot with his suit up close. In the fire world these guys are a big deal.

              Next, we got to meet Hector Vaso who was in charge of the North West Area Cache. The cage is really important when fighting wildfires because this place is where all the equipment is made for the firefighters. This was interesting to me because when I was working in the fires I really never got a chance to stop and think about where all this equipment came from. But now I saw how this equipment all that equipment is made and sent out. I still cannot believe that there were 17 million dollars of supplies laying around in the Redmond cache and a total of 60 million internationally. After that, the visit to the tanker plane was so unreal. Never in my life did I tough I would get to see one up-close. It is really unbelievable what such machines are capable of. To have the ability to drop a total of three thousand gallons of retardant within 3 seconds is just amazing. Overall this day has been like being a kid all over again, I got to see heroes and planes and even bigger planes. This trip just keeps on surprising me more and more.