A quick bit of background information before I start this review. I am an Eagle Scout from a Boy Scout troop in the county that I live in. Six scouts and two adult leaders from my troop decided to organize a trip to one of the BSA’s High Adventure camps in the Florida Keys called Sea Base. The Scouts run three of these High Adventure camps, one in Florida, one in Minnesota called Northern Tier which is based around a week long canoe trip in Boundary Waters Wilderness Area, and the most famous of which is in New Mexico called Philmont which is a two-week long backpacking and hiking trip. Our trip to the Florida National High Adventure camp comprised of me, three other Eagles, two Life Scouts, and two adult leaders, one of which had recently earned his Eagle rank and aged out from the troop.
Date: July 5, 2009
Flight: JetBlue Airways B6 1281
Aircraft: Embraer 190-100IGW N265JB "Blue Streak"
[photoid=6187512]
Seat# 3D
SDT: 11:40 EST
ADT: 11:39 EST
Departure Weather: Rainy, low-80s
SAT: 13:36 EST
AAT: 13:16 EST
Arrival Weather: Sunny, high-80s
FlightAware Tracking
We began our journey to the Keys on a rainy morning by meeting at the local bank. We said our goodbyes to our parents and loaded up our cars and headed for Richmond Airport. We unloaded out luggage and the eight of us took over the ticket counter. We got all of our tickets sorted out and breezed through security. Minus the few bottles over 3.4 onces mark and a hat hook we came out in one piece. We grabbed a few bottles of soda for our lunch that we packed and soon realized that the theme of this trip was going to be getting ripped off by the high prices of everything in airports and Florida as well. We sat down at our gate and waited boarding to begin. After a few minutes of waiting, boarding began. It went much easier than I had thought it might because it seems that ticket agents have a soft spot for people in uniform because we were allowed to board first along with a few of the soldiers from our local National Guard unit. We grabbed our seats and prepared for the flight to Ft. Lauderdale. Everybody was fascinated by the personal TVs on every seatback and we were playing with them for the entire trip. The door closed a few minutes after everybody boarded and we began our journey. A quick taxi to runway 34 was followed by a rather bumpy takeoff and we were underway to FLL. As we were climbing out everyone’s attention quickly turned from their PTVs to trying to locate their house among all the fog out the right side of the plane. We broke through the cloud cover and climbed to our cruising altitude of 38000 feet. Once cruising we were served our complimentary snack and beverage and I grabbed a Doritos snack mix and a Sprite. The hour and half long flight was made to seem much shorter by Comedy Central’s standup weekend playing a few feet in front of me. Before we knew it we were beginning our descent into southern Florida. Our descent took us inland from the Atlantic over northern Ft. Lauderdale and back towards the ocean. One of my fellow scouts soon discovered that the housing in the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area looks just like the intro to CSI: Miami. Coincidence? I think not. We made a beautiful landing on 9L and taxied to our gate. Since we were a few minutes early we had to wait for our gate to open since it was occupied by another B6 E190. After grabbing our luggage from the baggage claim area and picking up our rental van, we began our journey to the Keys.
The summary of our week at camp will come if you want, I don't want to bore you to death. The second flight will come later this week along with some pictures if I can find any that the other guys took.
Comments and questions are welcome as always.
-Chris
Date: July 5, 2009
Flight: JetBlue Airways B6 1281
Aircraft: Embraer 190-100IGW N265JB "Blue Streak"
[photoid=6187512]
Seat# 3D
SDT: 11:40 EST
ADT: 11:39 EST
Departure Weather: Rainy, low-80s
SAT: 13:36 EST
AAT: 13:16 EST
Arrival Weather: Sunny, high-80s
FlightAware Tracking
We began our journey to the Keys on a rainy morning by meeting at the local bank. We said our goodbyes to our parents and loaded up our cars and headed for Richmond Airport. We unloaded out luggage and the eight of us took over the ticket counter. We got all of our tickets sorted out and breezed through security. Minus the few bottles over 3.4 onces mark and a hat hook we came out in one piece. We grabbed a few bottles of soda for our lunch that we packed and soon realized that the theme of this trip was going to be getting ripped off by the high prices of everything in airports and Florida as well. We sat down at our gate and waited boarding to begin. After a few minutes of waiting, boarding began. It went much easier than I had thought it might because it seems that ticket agents have a soft spot for people in uniform because we were allowed to board first along with a few of the soldiers from our local National Guard unit. We grabbed our seats and prepared for the flight to Ft. Lauderdale. Everybody was fascinated by the personal TVs on every seatback and we were playing with them for the entire trip. The door closed a few minutes after everybody boarded and we began our journey. A quick taxi to runway 34 was followed by a rather bumpy takeoff and we were underway to FLL. As we were climbing out everyone’s attention quickly turned from their PTVs to trying to locate their house among all the fog out the right side of the plane. We broke through the cloud cover and climbed to our cruising altitude of 38000 feet. Once cruising we were served our complimentary snack and beverage and I grabbed a Doritos snack mix and a Sprite. The hour and half long flight was made to seem much shorter by Comedy Central’s standup weekend playing a few feet in front of me. Before we knew it we were beginning our descent into southern Florida. Our descent took us inland from the Atlantic over northern Ft. Lauderdale and back towards the ocean. One of my fellow scouts soon discovered that the housing in the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area looks just like the intro to CSI: Miami. Coincidence? I think not. We made a beautiful landing on 9L and taxied to our gate. Since we were a few minutes early we had to wait for our gate to open since it was occupied by another B6 E190. After grabbing our luggage from the baggage claim area and picking up our rental van, we began our journey to the Keys.
The summary of our week at camp will come if you want, I don't want to bore you to death. The second flight will come later this week along with some pictures if I can find any that the other guys took.
Comments and questions are welcome as always.
-Chris
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