to Lancaster and Riverside

I went to two places on Tuesday that I've never been before in my life: General Fox Airport, 50 miles west of Apple Valley; and southern Riverside, within spitting distance of Corona, where the nearest scion of the National Bartenders School is located.

Let's begin at the beginning. Now that I've completed two solo flights (consisting of three touch-and-gos while staying in the landing pattern), it's time for me to step things up a notch. Now I need to start actually flying to different places. I have to complete, I believe, five hours of cross-country flight, including a flight of at least 100 nautical miles. Harold and I knocked off an hour and a half of dual cross-country on Tuesday. We traveled 52 miles from Apple Valley Airport west to General Fox Airport, which, if you've never heard of it (nobody has, including me) lies about halfway between Palmdale Airport and Edwards Air Force Base, near Lancaster.

Everybody should be familiar with Edwards Air Force Base, at least. Formerly known as Muroc, it's where a lot of groundbreaking aviation research has taken place. Or perhaps I should say "soundbreaking." It's the airfield where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in his orange Bell X-1, "Glamorous Glennis." The X-15 tests were conducted there, too, as well as bunch of other stuff. There's oodles of history out there. My father used to work there, too (commuting over two hours round trip every day). The base sits at the end of truly massive dry lake. It's flat, wide and dusty: perfect for landings if the engines on your persnickety test plane suddenly decide to go out.

Anyway, the only difference between that day's flight and any other was that, before taking off, Harold and spread a chart on the vertical stabilizer of good ol' N42126 and plotted our course. It was pretty much due west. We'd overfly Victorville Airport, a rather uptight installation sitting in a bubble of Class D airspace extending up to 5,400 feet. That would be our first checkpoint. Then we'd pass another dry lake bed at El Mirage, roughly marking the halfway point. Finally, there'd be a big water tank on the last hill on the left before General Fox. That'd be our third marker. Then I'd call the air traffic controllers up on the radio and arrange a landing. Before the flight, Harold thoughtfully pointed out the ATIS, VOR, and radio frequencies I'd need. He also kept his flight guide (like a Triple-A guide book for private pilots) handy in the cockpit.

Oh, I'm sorry. Don't know what ATIS and VOR stand for? Welcome to my world. Piloting is sometimes just a load of alphabet soup. "ATIS" stands for "Automated Terminal Information Service." It's this nifty little report you get from the airport tower by tuning your radio to a certain frequency. They're updated often, sometimes ridiculously often if the weather's dodgy. They give you things like current wind speed, visibility, barometric pressure (so you can adjust your altimeter accordingly), and any special information you need to know. You tune into the ATIS, usually, before you take off from an airport and before you land at one, just to know what to expect.

The VOR is a navigational aid. We've come a long way from the good old days when airmail pilots used to navigate using roads and power lines. Now there are these handy-dandy VORs set up all over the States at regular intervals. "VOR" stands for "VHF Omidirectional Range." "VHF," as any dunderhead should know, means "Very High Frequency." They could've called 'em VHFORs, but that takes too long to say, and it sounds too Russian. Anyway, VORs put out a constant signal in the VHF range. By looking at a sectional chart of the area you'll be flying in, you can find out the frequencies for nearby VORs. Then, while in flight, you can tune your equipment to any particular VOR's frequency and use it to navigate. When you get out of range of one VOR, you can tune in to the next, and leapfrog your way across the countryside that way. It's advisable to memorize all these frequencies (plus the airport radio frequencies) before you go anywhere—or at least write 'em down. That's going to be a tricky for me, so I'm putting a kneeboard on my Christmas list. A kneeboard is a vital piece of cross-country flying equipment. It's a clipboard that straps to your leg, onto which you can jot notes, attach charts and airport guides, write down instructions from the tower, whatever. I'm going to need that when I go out on my big 100-mile cross-country to 29 Palms... Okay, anyway, back to the flight itself. Harold and I piled into the Cessna and off we went. I banked right once we'd reached pattern altitude. We skirted the mountains, and before we knew it we were almost over Interstate 15, which marked the boundaries of Victorville Airport's Class D airspace. That meant we had to give them a call and ask them if we could go through. Harold coached me on what to say beforehand. "Victorville Tower, Skyhawk 42126." Short pause. "Skyhawk 42126, Victorville Tower, go ahead." "We're about eight miles east of the airport at 4,500 feet, we'd like to transition your airspace to the west." (Oops! I forgot to give him my tail number again!) "Skyhawk 26, clear to transition airspace to the west." "Skyhawk 42126, roger." (Yes, I know 'Roger' is Army lingo and not Air Force, but sometimes I just get so excited. I had to forcibly restrain myself from saying 'over' after every transmission, too.) This was per Harold's instructions. He said it was best to just call out to the tower and give them your identification (which normally consists of the make and model of your plane and the tail number). Then they'd call back to you and tell you to keep talking. That way you didn't just start talking only to find out later that the man in the tower was on the phone or something and didn't hear you. I asked for permission to "transition the airspace," meaning pass through that Class D bubble without entering the pattern or landing or anything. Permission was granted, so we flew on. When we got clear of the airport's airspace a few miles later, I called them and thanked them, and on we went. We could already see El Mirage off our nose at about one o'clock. Don't know much about the place, myself. I think Chuck Yeager made a few emergency landings there when Rogers Dry Lake by Edwards wasn't an option. There were some long, low buildings off to the west of the dusty, suntanned lake bed. Harold informed me that his son-in-law lives there and is in charge of the organization that formerly administers speed trials for the race cars and speedsters which come to the lake bed to...well, conduct speed trials. That was pretty neat. Harold also told me to keep my eyes open, as a lot of gliders and RC airplane hobbyists operated from El Mirage, too. Nobody was out today, except for a lone streetcar sitting down in the middle of the lake with a few human figures next to it. Our flight continued uneventfully. Well, as uneventfully as any flight can be. Flights aren't really uneventful. It's hard to count the coolest thing any human being could ever do in his or her life as being "uneventful." The view was amazing. I could see all of the San Gabriel Mountains off to the south; the vast Mojave Desert spread out beneath us to the north, west and east; and nothing but acres and acres of blue skies overhead, shot through with cirrus clouds and contrails. Somebody down on the ground was burning weeds or something, too, because two gigantic plumes of smoke were climbing slowly into the air beneath us and then spreading out into a flat gray sheet across the countryside. From above, the effect was rather like looking at a lily pad from the shore of a pond. You could see the stem coming up from the bottom, and meeting the pad itself, and then the pad stretching over the surface of the lake. Only these "smoke pads" were big, stretching over a wide layer of invisible air. It was really quite something. The next time I solo, dang it, I am bringing my camera. After a little hunting about, we located the water tank on the hill. And then, by leaning forward at a 45-degree angle and squinting a lot, we were able to make out General Fox. We could barely see the airport buildings and the dark streak in front of them. Harold informed me that the streak was a park right next to the airport, over which we'd fly as we descended toward the runway. It was right about here, ten miles out, that Harold warned me to "keep my eyes peeled." There was occasional jet traffic between Palmdale and Edwards, he said. We'd be trundling right across the proverbial highway in the sky in our slow little Cessna, and we didn't want to get run over if we could help it. Fortunately, no jets made their appearance. I swung out to the northwest a little (taking care to avoid the restricted area that surrounded Edwards AFB, a double green line on the GPS) and set up for my landing approach. About ten miles away, we tuned in to Fox's ATIS broadcast. It was "Information Alpha" (ATIS broadcasts are labeled phonetically by letter, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.). About eight miles away, I called air traffic control. "Fox Tower, Skyhawk 42126." Another short pause. "Skyhawk 42126, Fox Tower, go ahead." "Skyhawk 42126 is eight miles east of the airport with Information Alpha, we'd like to make an approach." (Ha! I remembered my tail number that time!) "Skyhawk 26, cleared for a two-mile final to runway 2-4, report the freeway." I hadn't been cleared to land, but I hadn't asked to be, either. The tower's transmission meant that I was okay to set up my landing approach (a long, two-mile descent, straight in). Of course, I had to let them know when I was over the highway. Highway 395 (or maybe it was 14) ran just two miles east of the airport. The tower used it as a sort of rangefinder for incoming traffic. I set up my landing and called the tower when I was over the freeway. "Skyhawk 42126, cleared for landing 2-4," they replied. When an air traffic controller in a tower tells you something, it's customary for you to repeat it back to him (or her), just to let them know that you (a) heard, and (b) understood. Nobody in tower wants to tell a plane to stay in the pattern only to see them coming in to land on top of another plane a few minutes later. Harold cautioned me to repeat the tower's instructions back to them verbatim at this point. "They tape record these conversations, you know," he said. "You want to repeat it back to 'em just like they gave it to you, so just in case something happens, you can say 'You cleared me to land!' and the tape will back you up." So I was very judicious about repeating my landing instructions back. "Skyhawk 42126, cleared to land 2-4," I said, heart thumping. They've got a big ol' runway there at General Fox, wider and longer than Apple Valley. It had more VASI lights, too. I was a bit high to start out with, and got a little low, but in the end I evened 'er out. The two leftmost lights were white, and the two rightmost were red. I touched down pretty smoothly (even despite the bumpy breeze down near the ground), braked, and exited the runway. Ah, but it still wasn't over yet. Fox is a towered airport, remember? You can't even move on the ground without asking permission. As soon as I got off the runway, shut off the carburetor heat, put the flaps up and set the transponder to "standby," I called up the tower and told them I was off the runway and ready to taxi. They told me to taxi to the parking area, and I repeated it back to them dutifully. Then we went. It was easy as pie. Harold had been here before and knew right where to go. We passed a handsome twin-engine Cessna, pulled up next to a brown-and-white 172, stopped, and shut down. And that was it. We were there. (WOOT!) Harold and I stepped inside the airport cafe (considerably larger and better appointed than Skidmarks at Apple Valley) and had a little breakfast. He had toast and I had two eggs. Harold let me have a piece, though. He's a chum. We ate, talked a bit, and watched the airfield outside (not much traffic today, thank goodness). I was amazed to see, in the distance, the giant white windmills at Tehachapi appear as minuscule white sticks on the slopes of the mountains. It took two hours to reach them from my house by car. I was dumbfounded that they were this close by air. I picked up the tab (might as well go the whole hog; I was paying for Harold's time and the airplane). Then we got back outside, snapped on the master switch, listened to the ATIS once again (things hadn't changed much), fired up the Cessna, got taxi clearance, taxied to the run-up area for runway 24, ran the engine up, got permission to take off and depart the pattern on the downwind leg (making a U-turn after taking off), took off, and departed the pattern on the downwind leg. Peachy-keen! The return trip was pretty much the outbound one in reverse, except the "smoke pads" had gotten wider. And that car I'd seen on the dry lake bed at El Mirage was now ripping around and kicking up dust. And I didn't have to ask permission of Victorville Tower to transition their airspace this time, because we flew back at 5,500 feet instead of 4,500, which meant that we were above that bubble of Class D airspace (yippee!). I made, if I may say, a pretty darn good landing back at Apple Valley. We parked, shut down, and that was it. I now have 1.5 hours of cross-country time in my logbook. I jumped in the Jeep and headed right back to Highway 18, thence to I-15, and headed south for Riverside. I was a man on a mission. Determined not to spend the winter flipping burgers to earn a little flying money (and my parents' rent), I've resolved to go to bartender's school. If I'm on the ball, I could get at least one flying lesson's worth in tips per night. Also, I'd have yet another occupational notch in my belt for my next overseas adventure. I could work as barkeep in Australia, for example (in case they're at a lack for journalism jobs too). Plus it'd be just plain fun to work in a bar, I think, even if it was busy...as long as I was well-trained. To that end, I sought out a bartender's school nearby. The closest one I came up with was a scion of the National Bartenders School, headquartered in L.A. This branch was in Riverside, a somewhat dilapidated, scummy urban area near San Bernardino. The drive was about fifty to sixty miles, lasting an hour to an hour and a half (on bad traffic days, which are depressingly common down there). That's a hell of a commute for bartender's school, I know. But my only other alternative was Palm Springs, and though that's certainly a better neighborhood, it's a lot farther away. The school's address was 12702 Magnolia Avenue, Riverside. Now, Google Maps gave the directions as follows:

• Merge onto I-15 South. 49.7 miles
• Merge onto Ca-91 East toward Riverside. 1.9 miles
• Take the McKinley Street exit. 0.01 miles
• Turn right on McKinley Street. 0.03 miles
• Turn left on Magnolia Avenue. 0.00 miles
• 12702 Magnolia Avenue will be on the right.

Simple, right? Drastically more simple than most other Basin-based directions, I can tell you that much. Content in my navigational prowess (I'd just flown to an airport I'd never been to before, you know) I hummed and whistled as I drove down through Cajon Pass, past the San Andreas Fault, and finally came upon the junction of I-15 and the 215. Now, the 215 goes directly to Riverside. There is, in fact, a big green sign hanging over it that says "RIVERSIDE" on it. So, of course, even though my directions said "Merge onto the I-15 toward Riverside" and said absolutely nothing at all about getting on the 215, I got on the 215. I began to realize my mistake when, after reaching the 91 (considerably later than I would've reached it had I not diverted down the 215), I ran into a traffic jam. I got off the highway at Mission Inn Avenue, pulled into the near-empty parking lot of the Amtrak station, called up my dad at his office, and asked him, all contrite-like, if he could kindly find me a way from Point A in Riverside to Point B in Riverside. Turned out I was more screwed than I thought. I could either pull back out onto the freeway and brave the traffic jam (McKinley Street was just another couple of exits farther along) or I could drive further down Mission Inn Avenue until I hit Market Avenue, which eventually (after four or five miles) became Magnolia. That would be, as my dad called it, "stoplight hell," however. I heaved a sigh, thanked Dad, glanced toward the highway, and pulled back out of the parking lot and back onto California 91. I had at least enough sense left, after the last hour of terminal silliness, to notice that I was going west. I would be approaching the McKinley Street exit from the opposite direction indicated in my directions, so I would therefore need to turn LEFT on McKinley after exiting. I was so busy noticing this that I failed to notice the turn signal go green. The FedEx truck behind me had to remind me with his horn. When I got to the McKinley Street exit, I accordingly exited. The exit was one of those 180-degree turns that dumps you out at street level in the opposite direction you were heading when you exited. So, therefore, I actually DIDN'T have to turn left on McKinley after all. I still had to turn RIGHT. So, anyway, I was on McKinley, after failing to notice that turn signal go green as well, necessitating a honk from the youth group van on my six. You know, there's a multitude of reasons why flying is better than driving, and the utter lack of honking horns is one of them. I turned left on Magnolia, drove past 18800 Magnolia Avenue, didn't see another address number for a quarter mile, and then ran across 12402 or something. DANG! I'd missed it. Did I mention that Magnolia Avenue is a one-way street? I crossed the railroad tracks, finally managed to find a left-turn lane, whipped a U-ey, and came roaring back down Magnolia. I reached the intersection of Magnolia and McKinley after a few minutes, whipped another U-ey, and then went north back up Magnolia, this time more deliberately. You'd better believe I took the first available right turn after 18800. It was a strip mall. I drove down the row, peering at signs and banners, not seeing anything about bartender school. Frustrated, I pulled out of the parking lot, prepared to go further down Magnolia and take the next available right. As I was sitting at the light, waiting to turn, I glanced over at the strip mall's master billboard (the one where all the shops and stuff were listed). It was then that I noticed the address number stenciled upon it. 12702 Magnolia Avenue. Turns out the bartender's school was on the OTHER side of the building, where it was absolutely impossible to see from the street, thanks to the proximity of the building next to it and the narrowness of the parking lot in between. I found this out after whipping two quick rights: one onto Magnolia and one off, through the car wash, and back across the side street into the strip mall's parking lot once again. I got inside the school just as the day's free demonstration was beginning. Tasha, the head teacher, greeted me as I walked in, slapped a loaner textbook into my hand, bade me sit anywhere I pleased, and began a 45-minute lecture on highballs. We covered everything from Scotch-and-water to Freddy Fudpucker. The class, though extremely informal, was professional. Tasha was swearing up a blue streak and telling us off-color stories about her bachelorette party, but during that short lesson I learned a lot about serving drinks in a busy bar. This school is thorough, if I didn't mention that before. Most schools would just teach you how to make drinks. This one teaches you to mix drinks fast, to memorize a drink's ingredients mnemonically, to operate a POS system, and even the finer points of public-house conversation. After the lesson concluded I got the chance to talk to Tasha in her office. She told me that, for the school's flat fee of $595, I could sign up and take as long as I needed to to learn how to be a bartender. The classes ran on two separate schedules, weeks and weekends. I could attend whenever I pleased, however long I required. They had two sessions per day, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. All in all, that was more flexible than I'd dared to hope. They had speed trials at the end of every class, twelve drinks in six minutes. If you could keep up that pace, you could serve drinks in any bar during happy hour, Tasha claimed. I now had the skinny: scheduling, fees, lessons, teaching style...the works. All that remained was to say yea or nay. I thanked Tasha, grabbed a copy of the schedule, and walked out. I deliberated for a time. Was that godawful commute really worth it? Would I get my money's worth out of this? Should I wait until later? But ultimately I decided to go for it, for the reasons I've listed before. It just seemed too reasonable, too convenient, too cost-effective, and too...exciting. I never used to think of myself as a guy who actively sought out and took on challenges, but it's beginning to look that way, kind of. I want to see if I can learn to memorize a hundred drink recipes, and mix twelve drinks in six minutes. I want to be a bartender. I managed to find my way back out of Riverside the way I should've come in, without incident. Good thing, too. I had a headache when I finally got back to the house, and was just generally wiped out. Flying cross-country and navigating the congested Basin highways in the same day will do that to you.