July 11, 2018

Today was alright, I struggled staying awake during whole tour since I went to sleep late. We went to the Redmond Air Center. I  felt so cool because we were a entering restrictive area, in my mind it felt like I was trespassing, but we weren't since we were giving permission to be there. Where their main task is to provide medium level of fire training. During our time at the Pacific Northwest Training Center we got to meet a few people such as Annie Wittenburg, Aaron Olmos and, Mike Gomez. I noticed a lot of people worked for mike before in the past. He really likes to talk a lot, he took the stage from the other. Thought that was pretty funny. I learned different type of fire squads such as Type 1 also known as the Hotshot crew  with more experience in the field and, Type 2 IA which is a bit similar to Type 1. After we got to know about them we headed to see and learn about the smoke jumpers. Which was definitively my favorite part of the whole tour. I think it is both insane and awesome on how they go put out the fires. There we met two fit smoke jumpers Sam Johnson and Doug. They showed us the equipment they had on the before a jump, after a jump and during camp grounds. The backpack they have with them when camping out is insanely heavy weighing more than 140's pounds, I feel bad for their backs. We also got to see where they repair their parachutes. One part I was really impressed was how at times is only two people going to put out the fire. I really like how they are able to change into their gear under 3 minutes. After we went out to see the planes where they jump out. Going inside the plane felt really awesome in mind almost like my own vision of me being a jumper myself. As lunch hit, i got the change to ask Sam on how I can become a jumper. He recommended me to take at least 4 years being a firefighter and then going into becoming a jumper. Sam also gave me workout tips and routine, mainly focusing in stamina. The rest of the tour was really neat like getting to go inside the tankers plane. I was able to learned on how the plane is operated. This was Tour was one of my favorite tour since I wanted to maybe become a Smoke Jumper, and seeing it in person was more than i could as for.