Pam2
Pam and Brian on the BRAA entering Virginia Completing their 4,540 mile bike ride across the US The bike loaded for the San Diego 450 mile test ride
Let me back up a couple of years. One day Pam and I were riding up in a Cessna 182 together to do a 2-way jump and she leaned over to me and said “You know some day I would like to learn how to fly one of these things”. (I thought to myself, cool we are going to someday get a plane!) To make sure my plan worked I told her to go ahead and take her flying lessons first, and get her license, then I would later get mine. It worked. On April 3 1998 she did her flight exam, passed, and was a private pilot. By September we had located a Cessna 172 and purchased it. We owned that same Cessna for 13 years and she logged 425 hours behind the yoke. Pam flew our little plane from here to Washington DC, to Seattle Washington, Catalina Island, Sebastian Florida (a few times), Iowa, and down into Mexico over a dozen flights. It was Pam’s plane you see. I was only the navigator. Yes I did get my pilots license but when it was the two of us in the plane, Pam always flew left seat. I looked it up and found there are 497,000 pilots in the US which puts it at .15% of all people in the US are pilots. Feel sorry for Pam?
On Feb 14th, 1999 Pam made her first camera jump. This was significant because she only had 150 jumps. The so called ‘normal’ procedure was to do the video from the ground and having a camera person from the air was a new concept to doing canopy formation. From that point on she was there to film 99% of every jump I did.
Later that year we purchased our first investment property, an 8-plex in Toltec. Pam wanted so much to know more about how to run an efficient rental she then obtained a job at Remax in Casa Grande running their property management. Because she worked at Remax the following year she overheard someone come into the office wanting to sell two four plex’s that were condemned. She called me on the phone and had me go to take a look at them and we put an offer in for them before the seller even left the building. (we bought them too)
Pam poses by the Skydive Arizona sign
On a deep sea fishing trip the group shows off their catches Pam while catching her Amberjack
On day seven of the RAGBRAI in July 2011 Brian & Pam take a couple fo self portraits to celebrate One of Pam's favorite photo opportunities which she entitled
"Frog and Toad Together" almost every day we rode during
the sunrise and if Pam had a camera she would take this shot.
Photo Left: Pam takes off on her first paraglider ride in Lima Peru. Notice the sheer cliffs she is heading off - not bad for being scared of heights...
Photo Center: Pam shows off the Amberjack she caught on our fishing tip - which happened to be the largest one.....
Brian, Pam, and Eli finish day 2 on the 2011 RAGBRAI in Caroll IA.
Pam’s curiosity in the real estate eventually led her to earn her real estate license and start to sell houses. Because of the connections she had with Remax we ended up buying a few more houses. And finally in 2004 we bought another 12 plex and since our rental income was now matching what we made on our ‘regular’ jobs we decided to semi-retire and focus on traveling and being able to spend more time with each other. Both kids have graduated high school, my younger bother Mark had just died from bladder cancer at the age of 36, and we felt now more than ever that pursuing love, a fulfilling life, and happiness was even more important. We wanted to spend as much time deepening our relationship and spend even more time together. And did we.
From that point on we were blessed to be able to spend 99+% of our time with each other. We skydived together, we worked together on our rentals, we traveled together, and just were able to be together almost every minute of every day. The strange part, our relationship got even stronger. Over the next 7 years it felt began to feel “strange” if Pam was not with me. Feel sorry for Pam? I could not find records on how many people were able to retire when they were 40 and travel the world – but I would bet it is far less than 1% of the population. Feel sorry for Pam?
Pam & Brian taking the kids for a ride Pam with her grandson Bradon Pam with Ray Ochoa on St. Patricks day
Pam riding along with a dolphin in Russia
Pam poses with the Chinese accuracy team in China Pam swimming with dolphins in Naberezhnye Chelny (Tatarstan) Russia
We continued to skydive and in 2003 I had the opportunity to join the U.S. Parachute Team. Pam and I continued to be on our local team together but I also ‘moonlighted” on the U.S. Parachute Team. Eventually Pam would become the video person for the U.S. Parachute team as well. For those of you who do not know what the U.S. Parachute team is – it is a competition team who goes and gets to compete in world parachuting championships. The best part is the U.S. team became so effective we would go on to win 4 of the last 4 world parachuting championships. Pam and I got to travel and compete in France, Croatia, Russia (twice), and the Netherlands. And bringing home the gold for the U.S. is no easy task in any event – but Pam is one of the few percentage of people in the world who can claim they received gold medals at world competitions. Feel sorry for Pam – no way! There are 32,000 active skydivers in the United States – at the 2010 world skydiving championships only 9 US skydivers were able to bring home a gold medal. That means out of the 32,000 US skydivers only .02% of them can claim they won a gold medal at the world championships. Feel sorry for Pam? No way!
Also in 2003 we began to get involved in breaking the word record attempts for the largest canopy formations. Again Pam and I were able to jump together, her with her video and me with dozens of others trying to keep our parachutes from tangling. (Pam was much too smart to be in with all of us – she stayed back there it was safe and she could keep track of where all of us were) Together Pam and I would be able to have new world records in large formations for 64, 65, 70, 81, 85, and finally 100 parachutes all linked together. And because of these formation records it allowed Pam and I to travel an extreme amount together, in fact in 2007 we left our house on January 31st and by the time we made our 100 way world record on November that year and returned to our house on December 2nd, we were only at our house 27 days that entire 10 month period. (You better be careful what you wish for!)
Pam made 2,644 jumps with only just over 70 were without me. Feel sorry for Pam? How many people can claim they jumped 2,644 times with a fear of heights. Pam can. Feel sorry for Pam? How many people can say they are in the Guinness Book of World Records? Pam can. How many people can say they shot video footage that has been aired on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the BBC, and many other popular foreign networks. Pam can.
Pam and Brian riding to Tucson on the Pioneer Parkway The summit team of Tai Shan in China Pam poses with some the local children in Russia 2010
Photo Right: Brian, Pam, and Bradon pose at a wedding. (you didn't know they made suits that small?)
Photo Center: On day 35 of the BRAA, and our first day pedaling into Iowa Brian & Pam find a mulberry tree to climb.
Photo Left: Also on day 35 of the bRAA and 2,300 miles we entered Iowa and Pam jumps for joy!
In 2002 my father was a ‘missionary assistant’ down in Bonaire and he asked Pam and myself to come and visit. Never having hard of Bonaire before we started to research what Bonaire had to offer and found out they were famous for scuba diving. We found a ‘special’ price to get certified so of to Hawaii we went and earned our certification in 3 days. While in Hawaii we rented a Cessna 177 and flew from island to island looking for as many hidden waterfalls as we could find. While flying between Molokai and Oahu we witnessed a bunch of hump back whales spouting so we kept circling around them to provide an audience for their show. Feel sorry for Pam?
Later that year we did go down to Bonaire and Pam found her happy place. Scuba diving was Pam’s favorite and Bonaire was her favorite place. Over the years we would feed the sharks at the Great Barrier reef off of Australia, use a reef hook in Palau to watch the sharks, barracuda, and fish much larger than Pam feed. We would dive the depths of the Blue Hole in Belize, pet the green moray eels, but it was playing with the sea turtles that gave Pam the most pleasure. But we always returned to Bonaire. In December of 2008 we were blessed to have taken Pam’s son Tim and his wife Shaylee down to Bonaire to do their first open water scuba dives. And as it worked out we are pretty sure her first grandson was conceived on that trip. Do the math… I’m just saying….
