Whats New: Beautiful Klamath Falls

This last week I had the opportunity to help redesign the approaches for the Klamath Falls airport. The trip was very productive and I learned a lot. Tuesday morning at 0630 meet at Seattle Air Traffic Control Center in Auburn Washington. Now you might be thinking Government trip, fly down first class and the best hotels in town right, no way flying is for wusses we got to drive in a beautiful 2000 Chevy Blazer. The good thing about that car is it has four wheel drive and we needed it. The drive down was great until Eugene Oregon. Then the snow came. I was the fortunate driver. We were driving in near white out conditions. Visibility was down to about thirty or forty feet. I was very fortunate to find a big rig to follow, I was able to see the faint outline of his trailer and hope that he would not lead me into the ditch. After 10 1/2 hours we made it to Klamath Falls. We then went and checked in at the Best Western. Now as far as hotels it was the best in town, and that is not a dig. I was shocked at how nice the hotel was, and how good they were to us. Wednesday was a full work day. We spent hours on each approach. It is crazy that one little change can have a huge impact on our traffic flow in and out of the airport. Thursday was a short day, not that we didn't have a lot to do it is just that we were hit by a blizzard and they closed down the airport and the military base. We were able to get all of our work done before we had to leave, but we were the last people left on base. One of the fun parts of the trip was seeing and climbing on and around the F-15's. The Drive home was not much better than the drive down. We drove for almost 13 hours, through some really nasty passes. Over all the trip was a success, and I learned a lot.