Life Beyond The Chair

This is me!!! In the cockpit of a Skyarrow plane and behind me is the amazing and brave Austin Decker who has the courage to strap in behind me every day. He is amazing, patient and encouraging despite the many mistakes I make. There is so much about this experience that is so unreal. The first being that I am well enough to be here. It was just a year ago that doctors were telling me and my family to prepare for the worst, that things looked grim. As my family prepared for the worst, I took it as a challenge, they were counting me out and it just meant I would fight harder to prove them wrong! So slowly, day after day and month after month I regained my strength. It came with great sacrifice for my family, everything indefinite. no concrete answers, just blind Faith. However, slowly, step by step we made it here, to this, to flying. On November 17, 2004, at 2:00am, I stepped out of my van. kissed my 6 kiddos goodnight and promised them that in 2 da...

Five-minute free write, no editing, no hesitating, just WRITE! STUCK When I moved to California in 1990, I was introduced to the amazing new world of ATV's(all terrain vehicles) and the Imperial Sand Dunes near Glamis, CA. As a midwestern girl who grew up thinking brown was dead and green was alive to find this desert oasis was incredible.  It was as though I was dropped in a whole new world and I couldn't wait to explore it! My 1986 Honda 250r and I explored every inch of those dunes after a very steep learning curve. There was no place like being out in the middle of those dunes riding as fast as I could, I loved every minute of it. When I arrived in California, I had never ridden an ATV in my life, however, I had ridden With my dad on his dirt bike as a kid and I was assured by the much more experienced riders, that riding an ATV was "close" to riding double on a dirt bike. For the record it was not at all the same!  The only real "DON...