I passed my King Air checkride!

Well Atlanta is in our rearview mirror now.  It was nice while we were there though I guess. The nice part was that Kristen was able to be there with me.  We hung out everyday.

We found some rather large dryers to do our laundry

It was so different there in a civilian program.  I was used to the military approach to training pilots and..., I don't want to get anyone mad..., but the civilians have it easier!  Ha.  My checkride was almost a joke.  I studied and was prepared for it to be a normal military checkride and there I was during the checkride cracking jokes and wondering when it was going to get difficult.  Oh well.  That was nice but it makes me wonder about those pilots flying passengers around with no military experience.... just a thought.

One day in Hotlanta we were hungry and went driving around for a restaurant.  We saw a Chick-fil-A and decided to eat there.  It looked a little different than other Chick-fil-A's on the outside and it had tables inside with a servers....?  I had to ask the server at the counter what this was all about.  It was the first Chick-fil-A!  Ha!  How cool is that.  They must hire the NICEST employees at that one because we had a pleasant time.  Just a heads up, if you're ever in Atlanta close to the airport and hungry for some chicken.....that's the place to go.

I'm on 6 days of leave right now in between my Atlanta and Meridian training.  We came back to New Orleans to relax.  It just so happened that my mom came in town also so we got to hang out one day.  We went to see my cousin play basketball and then race his derby car with the boy scouts.  It was cute.  I should have been a boy scout....

The "famous" Pat O's picture that you get when you go

Pat O's fountain

Mike carrying Toria to the car

Our friends from Laughlin were close to New Orleans and they knew that we were in town so they called us and asked us to meet them for dinner.  We picked one of our favorite places on St.Charles Ave.  During the dinner we found out that they hadn't made reservations yet for a hotel.  So we called Kristens mom and asked her to blow up the air mattress so that they can stay over for the night.  Haha.  After dinner we asked if they want to see more of New Orleans.  They did so we brought them to Bourbon Street.  It was a Wednesday night so I didn't know what to expect.  But it turned out to have a small crowd.  We walked up and down Bourbon.  Bought HUGE ASS BEERS.  And went into a few clubs to listen and dance to music.  We finally settled in at Pat O's.  We drank a few Hurricanes and talked.  It was a lot of fun.

Above ground graves

Marie Lavou's grave

Kristen and Toria with some French Quarter locals

What a beautiful day

Mike and Toria

Good ole' Cafe du' Monde

I was jammin to the band

The next day we all woke up and decided to see more of New Orleans.  We showed them the above ground graves (which is unique to New Orleans) including marie Lavou's grave (queen of VooDoo).  Then we walked around the French Quarter.  We saw the St. Louis Cathedral, French Market, Cafe du' Monde for beignets and basically just walked around the rest of the day.  At night time we were walking down Decatur street and all of the sudden a band stared playing.  It was McDonough 35 (a local high school).  It was like our own personal parade.  It was freakin' awesome!

I'll be heading up to meridian, MS this Tuesday to start MC-12 training.  It seems like a lot of fun!