Whirlybird

This Christmas my mom decided to give the Tillman/Rhoads family all tours of the Bay Area via Helicopter. This was made possible mainly due to one of her tenants, Jeremy, who is a flight instructor at Silver State Helicopters out of the Oakland Airport, and also our fearless pilot on the fateful day. Well, this January she made good on her gift and we were all able to get up into the air and see the Bay from a new and spectacular perspective! Here we all are just before the first take-off.



Some of us were nervous but we were all excited. First up was "Grandma", Tristan and Ethan. All of them were happy to be getting their feet off the ground!



While they were gone the rest of us were given the Grand tour of the Silver State Helicopter flight school by one of the students Tim. He even let my fly in the helicopter flight simulator, though I wasn't too good at it.

Next up were Janelle, Emma and Rob! I must tell you that prior to the trip Janelle had many horrible thoughts about the worst scenarios that could possibly transpire! Among them:

1. Crashing
2. Mid-Air Vomiting
3. Crashing
4. Falling out of the helicopter at 1000+ feet
5. Crashing
6. Turbulence
7. Crashing
   

But she managed to overcome her fears and take aim at the clouds! Here are some of the sights we saw...


Here's a Shot of Alameda - somewhere in there is my sister's house.



This is the East side of the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island. You can see the old bridge and the new bridge construction.



Alcatraz Island



Here's us flying OVER the Golden Gate Bridge



And flying UNDER the Golden Gate!



Ocean Beach in SF



Downtown SF - Market St.



AT&T Park. I think they were prepping for a Monster Truck Rally or something.



And finally, back safely on the ground.


About the time we were doing our passes over SF I began to get a bit sickly. It started in my gut and got worse. My body started sweating profusely, then I knew it was time to head back. Thankfully for all of us we made it back without incident. And I should mention that NONE of Janelle's fears were realized, even though I was closer than I wanted to be to fear #2.

All-in-all we had a great time and we all got our first trip in a whirlybird! It was an occasion to remember and will not soon be forgotten! Thanks Mom!!