An Eclectic Mind

Read it. It’s funny.

I forgot to mention this in my “Gratuities ARE Appreciated” post, so I’ll share it now.

In the summer of 2004, I was a pilot at the Grand Canyon, working for the big helicopter tour operator there. They’d often have 10 or 11 helicopters running at once, so when a tour bus pulled up, we could take up to 66 passengers at a time. Needless to say, just about all the tour bus operators used us. Very few of our passengers spoke English.

One day, they loaded us up with a Japanese tour group. I had a petite older Japanese woman next to me. She was probably in her 60s. She was very nervous. And she didn’t speak a word of English.

When we first took off, she grasped the bottom of her seat, like most nervous passengers do. And she continued to look nervous for the first part of the flight. But then we slipped over the South Rim and began our flight across the Canyon. Her eyes seemed to bug out of her head as she leaned forward to suck in the view.

After a while, I realized that she wasn’t nervous anymore.

When we landed and I cut the throttle to idle, she leaned across and hugged me — no small task, given I was wearing a shoulder harness, pair of headsets, a baseball cap, and sunglasses. Then she began rummaging around in her purse. She produced a plastic card and handed it to me with a great deal of excited blabbering in Japanese. She bowed repeatedly before the loader came to help her out.

I looked down at the card, completely puzzled. It had a picture of Mt. Fuji on it and was covered with colored symbols and writing in Japanese. There was a magnetic strip on one side. I put it in my shirt pocket.

During my lunch break, I hunted down Hajame, our Japanese pilot. I told him about the woman and then handed him the card. “What is this?” I asked.

He studied it for a moment, then broke out laughing. Apparently, it was some kind of bus pass for a mass transit system in Japan.

To this day, I prize that “tip.” Sure — it’s completely worthless to me. But it was the thought that counted. She, in effect, gave me a souvenir of the flight. And 4+ years later, I still remember her and the flight that won me such a prize.

Some comments about tipping in America.

As some readers know, I’m currently up in Page, AZ doing photo flights and charter flights with my helicopter. American Aviation, which runs a tour operation here with airplanes, is booking my flights. I’m living in a local campground, right next door to two American pilots. And since I see many of the pilots any day I’ve got a flight, I’ve come to know them.

One of the things that all the pilots talk about once in a while is tipping — or lack thereof. And although I suspected it, I soon learned firsthand that European tourists don’t generally tip.

For those of you in other countries reading this post, an explanation may be in order. In fact, that’s what this whole post is about.

Who We Tip

Tipping is a way of life in America. I don’t know if this is good or bad — I’ve lived here my whole life, so it seems natural to me. We tip waitresses/waiters/servers (whatever term applies) in restaurants. We tip cabbies. We tip skycaps — if we need them; wheelie bags are quickly replacing them. We tip tour guides. We also tip free shuttle drivers, airport line guys, and of course, helpful bellmen (when we can find one).

Americans generally tip anyone who provides service that’s even slightly above and beyond what’s expected, and lots of folks will even tip people who certainly don’t deserve a tip.

Some of us also tip tour guides. I do. When I take a guided tour, when the tour is over, I hand over some cash to the guide. I also tip pilots for air tours.

How Much To Tip

In the U.S. the standard “minimum” tip is about 15% of the total bill when you’re in a restaurant. So if you’re having a fine dinner out with some friends and the bill comes to $100, you really need to be prepared to pay an extra $15 to tip your server. In general, Americans tend to tip servers anywhere from 10% to 25%. I’m usually a big tipper and lean toward 20%. But if service sucks, I’ll let my server know by being a stingy tipper. I even stiffed a waitress recently — something I’ve never done before — because of the treatment she gave us when we sent our breakfasts back to the kitchen so they could finish cooking the eggs.

If you go to a restaurant with a large group of people — 6 or 8 or more — it’s common for the restaurant to add an 18% gratuity to your bill. If you’re not sure if it has been added, look carefully at the bill. Although you can tip more if you like, you probably won’t want to go another 15% on top of that.

The thing about restaurant servers is that they don’t make a lot of money without tips. In fact, I’m pretty sure they make less than minimum wage — around $7/hour these days, I think — in a lot of restaurants. They literally depend on tip income to get by. So when they serve a party of foreigners who don’t know how to tip and they get stiffed, they’re not very happy — especially if they didn’t do anything wrong.

I usually follow the same restaurant percentage rule for cabbies. I tip tour guides based on the length of the tour, the quality of the tour narrative, and the cost of the tour. I have no set formula. For example, I recently took a $35, 3-1/2 hour tour of Monument Valley and tipped the guide $20. I thought she was worth it.

Air Tour Pilots

The guys who fly tours don’t make a lot of money. In fact, they often earn less money they they could stocking shelves and wearing an orange apron in a Home Depot. Most of these guys are young and don’t have families to support. They’re starting their careers. They’re not flying for the money. They’re flying to gain experience and build time so they qualify for better jobs where they can actually earn enough money to really live on.

In other words, they’re paying their dues.

Most of them do a good job. They fly safely and, when language is not a barrier, point out the sights of interest to their passengers. They’ve had a lot of flight training and they’ve been tested many times to make sure they know what they’re doing. A few of them can get a little rambunctious, especially on a slow day or a day near the end of the tour season. But that’s usually because they’re bored and ready to move on to something more challenging.

Gratuities Are Appreciated!

Tipping tour pilots is entirely a personal matter. It’s a way to say “thank you.” While saying “Thank you” in words — in whatever language you speak — is a nice thing, handing over a few bucks for the pilot to buy a beer at the end of the day or a latte early the next morning is a lot nicer.

To encourage tipping among people who might not be sure it’s acceptable, the pilots here have small placards they’ve posted in their airplanes. They look like this:

I don’t know if the grammar or spelling is right and would definitely appreciate any corrections that a reader can provide.

It’s funny. The guys get everything from pocket change — literally! — to $20 bills. We laugh about the change, especially when it includes pennies. If an American tipped like that, we’d know he was insulting us on purpose. But when a European does it, we know it’s because he just doesn’t know any better.

The first week I flew here, I got a $2 tip from extremely enthusiastic passengers who had spent $900 for the flight. But the next day, on the same sort of flight, I got $50. (Go figure, huh?) Today, after five flights, I’m still tipless. The odd thing is, it doesn’t matter how much you talk to the passengers or make a special effort to position the aircraft so they get the perfect picture. Either they’re tippers or they’re not. Today, mine were not.

What’s Reasonable?

With the dollar amounts ranging so wildly, a tourist from a non-tipping society might be wondering what’s a reasonable tip for a tour pilot. Here’s what I think. For one of these 30-minute flights the guys are doing, I think $5 per passenger would be a reasonable minimum tip. That’s less than 5% of the cost of the flight. $10 per person would be extremely welcome. Anything more than that would give the pilot bragging rights back in the pilot lounge between flights — which isn’t such a bad thing, either.

The more passengers the aircraft can hold, the more tips the pilot can earn per flight. One guy who flies a 172 does very poorly because he can only take three passengers. I can also take just three. I think the rest of the guys should be buying us drinks at the end of the day.

Of course, I’m not suggesting you tip for bad service. Rude people who can’t give you the respect you deserve don’t deserve your respect, either. Just remember that it isn’t the tour desk conducting your flight. It’s a highly trained, professional pilot — who is likely still paying off the loans he needed to learn how to fly.

That’s the Way It Is

Right now, with the U.S. dollar being so weak, the U.S. is a real bargain for European tourists. But for the people who serve those tourists in restaurants, on tours, etc., it’s not quite as appealing. Many of these people depend on gratuities for their work to make their lives a little better. It’s disappointing to them when the extra cash doesn’t add up at the end of the day.

The perfect storm is passing.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about an extremely full plate of work combined with a tough long distance travel schedule and some serious back problems. Taken together, this situation caused a “Perfect Storm” in my life.

In response to the folks who have been e-mailing me and tweeting to me on Twitter, I thought I’d give an update.

Travel

The travel is over, at least for now. I’m settled in in my camper in Page, AZ. I have a full hookup and am relatively comfortable. My next door neighbors are two pilots who work for the same company that has been chartering my services since the beginning of August. I’ll be here until the beginning of October, when I fly back to Wickenburg to give some helicopter rides in Congress, AZ. By then, I’ll know whether I’ll be coming back to Page or staying in Wickenburg for the rest of the year.

The Book

The book I’ve been working on since the first week in August is nearly finished. I have one chapter and three appendices to write. I expect to get through most of that today. Then I’ll spend the rest of the week going through the edits and reviewing the proofs.

Back Pain

My back is fully recovered. I don’t understand why or how.

For three weeks, I was on a roller-coaster of pain that ranged from minor aches eased by ibuprofen to literally crippling pain that had me in two clinics and a hospital emergency room. The problem was never diagnosed, but I think it was a herniated disk.

After a two-week wait, I was able to get into a physical therapy program here in Page. While I still can’t understand how they thought they’d resolve the problem without knowing what was causing it, they tried. After my second visit, which involved some kind of machine that sent electric pulses that were supposed to ease the pain, I left feeling nauseous and light-headed, with my blood pressure at 166/110. I didn’t go back.

The pain had begun to ease off before physical therapy started. Because the OTC painkillers — ibuprofen, Tylenol, and Alleve — were starting to mess with my head, I stopped taking them during the day. I was getting used to the pain. It wasn’t crippling anymore.

And then one day last week, the pain just stopped.

What I’m Up to Now

So now I’m finishing up my book and doing some flying. I flew 3.5 hours on Saturday and 3.3 hours on Sunday — that’s more than I usually fly in a whole month in Wickenburg. There’s work here and a nice lake to hang out by when I’m done working. Lots of outdoor activities.

The weather is starting to cool down. I’ve re-started my diet and am sticking to it. When I’m done with this book, I’ll start riding my bike again. I’m also really looking forward to midday excursion to Lower Antelope Canyon.

I think I’d like to move up here, at least for part of the year.

Anyway, I feel as if I’m getting my life back. Can’t wait to jump into a few new projects. Thanks to everyone who shared words of support. I really do appreciate it.

The end of my cherry drying contracts, that is.

I came to Washington State in the beginning of June to start a pair of cherry drying contracts. I was fortunate enough to get a third contract wedged in between the first two, giving me almost seven solid weeks of work.

Well, “work” is not quite an accurate term. I was on standby for all three contracts, but only flew 5.2 hours on two days during one contract.

Thank heaven I was getting standby pay. Without it, I would have taken a heavy loss this summer. But with it, and thanks to the availability of a pilot willing to share ferry costs on both 10+ hour flights between Washington and Arizona, I’ll stay in the black.

My third contract officially ends on Monday, July 28 at nightfall. Unless the weather looks threatening, they’ll likely cut me loose a few hours earlier. It doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving until Tuesday.

But in the meantime, I figured it might be a good idea to drive my orchards, just to see if there was still fruit on the trees. I was in Wenatchee today, so I drove past the one near Wenatchee Airport. There are two cherry orchards across the street from each other. I’m not sure which one is mine. (Heck, it’s hard to tell from the ground when all the photos I have are from the air!) One of them still had plenty of cherries, the other had none. I continued on to Quincy and visited two of my three orchards there. Both were heavy with cherries. One of them is likely to be picked soon — fruit boxes had been laid out neatly in the rows between the trees.

As long as there’s fruit on the trees, there’s a slight chance they’ll ask me to stay on. Although I don’t mind staying an extra day or two, I really don’t want to stay longer than that. I feel done with this place, if you know what I mean.

My trip home will be completed in multiple steps:

• Tuesday: Fly the helicopter from Quincy to Seattle. Then take Horizon back to Wenatchee and drive back to Quincy. I hope to get all that done on Tuesday, but might have to take an early morning flight on Wednesday to get back to Quincy.
• Wednesday: Drive the trailer to Walla Walla. That Washington town consistently comes up as a top choice when I go through the quiz on the Find Your Spot Web site. I was there in 2006 during my Midlife Crisis Road Trip and I liked what I saw. But I was only there long enough to do my laundry and visit a downtown independent bookstore. This time, I’ll stay two nights and check it out.
• Friday: Drive the trailer from Walla Walla to Salt Lake City. I’ll be staying with the family of one of my editors, Megg. She’s going to take me hiking on Saturday.
• Saturday: Drive the trailer from Salt Lake City to Page, AZ. If I get a late start from SLC, I’ll spend the night on the road and get in sometime on Sunday.
• Monday: Fly in Mike’s plane from Page, AZ to Wickenburg. I need to get Alex the Bird home.
• Friday: Fly with Mike on US Air from Phoenix to Seattle.
• Saturday-Sunday: Fly with Mike and another pilot from Seattle to Page, AZ. I’m hoping to spend the night in the Reading area, where a buddy of mine is on a fire contract. I think we’d all get a lot out of seeing how a fire operation works.

I still have four chapters of a book revision to finish. I goofed off in Wenatchee most of today, but I expect to finish up over the weekend. There’s another book right after it, but I’ll get that started when I get back to Wickenburg and finish it when I settle down in Page.

Putting the tracks on a satellite image.

I had my handheld GPS (a Garmin GPSmap 60c) running while I was drying cherries and the GPS tracked my movements. Today, on a whim, I saved the tracklogs and downloaded them to my Mac. Then I brought them into Google Earth and looked at a few of the orchards.

The tracks are not very accurate. They show a zig-zag motion that appears to cross diagonally across the rows. In reality, when I reached the end of each row, I moved to the side and turned to go down another row. So rather than pointed endings and diagonal tracks, an accurate rendering would show squared off endings and parallel tracks.

But I still think it’s interesting to see how I moved over the land. Take a look and see for yourself. These are the tracks from my flights on July 4.

In this first example, I’d flown past the orchard on the south side from west to east, then circled back. I made a wide clockwise circle of the orchard to get my bearings, then came in on the south end, near a white single-wide mobile home. There was a woman there, waving happily when I arrived. She’d left the door of her house open and I blew a bunch of leaves into it. (Oops.) My track took me back and forth up the triangular orchard. Although the track makes it look as if I had a short row near the top, it’s just another inaccuracy in the track. I departed the area with a clockwise circle to the west.

Here are two others representing three dries. I went to the lower one first, passing it by on the south from west to east. I circled back, then came in on the southwest corner. I went back and forth from west to east, then broke off. It started to rain so I repositioned to the airport, which was less than a mile away. I read for a while, then got a call with a new list of orchards. I started back up and took off, returning to re-dry the lower orchard in this image again (hence the double set of track lines) after doing others a bit farther to the west. I did the upper orchard about an hour later, coming in from the northwest and departing from the southeast side back to the west.

Here’s a sloppy looking one that really wasn’t this sloppy. I did the lower orchard first, coming in from the southeast and departing out the northwest. I then went directly to the upper orchard, beginning the dry at the southwest and exiting at the northwest. The pair of diagonal lines going across the bottom of this screenshot represent overflights of the orchard on my way to or from the ones in the previous screenshot.

This is the first orchard I described in some detail in my “I Dry Cherries” post. Again, I really didn’t fly a zig-zag pattern in the main orchard. and I’m certain I flew at least two more rows (one in each direction) in the smaller orchard. But the GPS doesn’t seem to pick up all the points when it makes its tracks. The two other straight lines near the bottom right of the image are overflights to/from other orchards. That’s the Columbia River/Lake Pateros in the bottom right corner of the shot.

These are just a few of the orchards. You get the idea. Next time I fly, I’ll use my new geotagger. It can save up to 600,000 waypoints (I think) so I have a feeling the pictures it draws will be a lot more accurate. If they are, I’ll show them off here again.

We all know what a geek I can be.