Monday June 25, 2007

Up not so early today, around 7ish.  Breakfast in the hotel waiting to hear the status of the airplane.  As would be expected, the call comes as the food is being served.  Ever the faithful father, I go ahead an eat while my food is warm.  Chris goes off to deal with the airplane mechanic on the phone.  Bad news !  We are "hard down" for maintenance.  It will take them until tomorrow to get and install the part, it appears we will be guests of the Parker Springs Hotel for one more night.  To bad because the room air conditioning did not exactly get all of last nights burrito's out of the room.  I would say they are going to have to repaint. 

As part of the developing story, Chris is in contact with the maintenance facility.  Our situation is deteriorating.  Maintenance just called again and the earliest it looks like we are going to be able to go is tomorrow night.  Depending on the definition of tomorrow night, we may have to stay here another night.  If tomorrow night means around 6PM we could still get to Bullhead City easily before dark.  The part will be FedEx'ed in for arrival at 8AM.  The bad news is that since this is a Cessna approved maintenance facility (there is some good news to this story, this could have happen in some out post like Goulding's) they are having a day of class from the manufacturer.  So, lets say the part arrives on time and they get right to it, we could be out by 9:30AM.  If, instead, there is a little "play" in the system and they go off to class then we have to hope there is enough time left in the day to get at it before they go home.  If so then we make the twilight landing at Bullhead.

So now, what to do ?  Lets see, Palm Springs in June, 105 on the thermo meter.  Off to the mall or rather the outlet stores up in Banning Pass.  After inflicting minor damage to the credit card we started back for the good old Parker Springs.  En route we noticed the exit for the Palm Springs tram which takes you to the top of this mountain range that blocks Palm Springs from the coast.  I think the top is somewhere around 10,000 ft so the good news is that it was 72 degrees on top.  You make the assent in a round cable tram that has a rotating floor so everyone gets a great view.  From the top you can see the entire valley and most of the way to Las Vegas.  There are also a number of hiking trails that you can spend the day waking, last tram at 10:30PM.  For that special occasion there is a restaurant on top.  Once again Chris tried to cash in...lets take the hiking trail!  The vertical down to the trail is steeper than the hills in San Francisco.  We took the shorter of the two loops which I have to say was a very nice walk through tall pine trees so you really picked up the combination of the fresh mountain air and the pine smell.  When we reached the part of the walk that would take us back up the vertical to the mountain house I could swear I heard Chris say "let's run". At any rate I hauled my fat rear end up the path so I thought I earned the ice cream bar at the top that forced us to miss a tram and wait an additional 20 minutes.

Back at The Parker we choose Fisherman's Market in Palm Springs for our fine dining experience.  Interesting place in that you go in one building and place your order and then go into another building for your table.  Once prepared they bring it out to you.  Good food, nothing special.

Turned in thinking positive thoughts about tomorrow hoping there will not be any "play" in the system and the door will be repaired before class starts.