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Note: Rachel started keeping a diary of her experiences flight training with Mauna Loa Helicopters. The diary begins in June of 2009 and is updated as Rachel progesses in her training.

June 30 2009

So a lot of my friends think I’m crazy. Like in an admiring kind of way, like gutsy-crazy, chasing the dream with all the will and force of my teeth and fingernails crazy. People ask me a lot, why helicopters, why now, why you? How do you get from doing highlight touch-ups and crew cuts to flying helicopters? The truth is it was a lot of dominoes. Like objects succumbing to gravity, everything fell into place. It felt like a dream at first.

My plane left at midnight on June 29, 2009. I’d arrive in Kona, Hawaii at noon on July first. That’s a five-hour flight, four-hour layover, and another five-hour flight, minus two hour time difference. I think in my mind Hawaii was a lot closer to Alaska than it really is. Hey, did you know? The Pacific Ocean is actually, like, big.

I fell asleep in the terminal at Seattle, and slept most of the flight in, next to honeymooners, while lei-decked flight attendants passed out customs declaration forms and pamphlets about all the great vacation activities. The first thing I noticed when I woke up in the latter portion of the flight was that outside my window was a whole lot of blue, bluesky blueocean blueeverything – I mean, Alaska is gorgeous, but I’d never seen it exhibit this sapphire shade. There was a thin band of paler blue demarking the horizon between the unbelievable blues. I couldn’t get over it. I felt like I needed to point it out to people, share in the reverie. It’s possible some of the majesty was elaborated by the fact that I was half-asleep in the middle of the day after staying up all night and then crashing on the plane, which isn’t a terribly refreshing kind of sleep, half still in dreamland.

When we landed in Kona, I looked out my window, and saw a lot of helicopters, like, more helicopters than I’d seen operated in one place before ever in my life. Robbies and 407s and unnamed larger impressive ones. Taxiing, taking off, doing cool helicopter things. I grinned like a fool. This was right.

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