Pet Scorpion Escaped

Friday, December 21, 2007:

WX: 7:00, 65, Cleared early, no wind, very humid.

We are planning to depart for Guatemala City today. Expect to stay at an empty condominium in San Cristobal next to Doug and Sarah Johnson. We’ll pick up packages waiting for us there, including our satellite tracking system and try to obtain a cellular, wireless internet modem from our cell service provider: Tigo.

Pet Scorpion Escaped:
While I was getting the plane ready for our flight to Guatemala City, Jennifer called me on the cell phone and asked if I had let the pet scorpion go last night. We kept this one (of the many we have encountered and killed) partly because of his size. It’s length was about five to six inches, stretched out, and had very large pincers.

We had a little excitement the other night. We had not fed our pet scorpion for a couple of weeks. I was out in the yard in the dark, starting-up the little generator when I noticed the very bright reflection of two eyes on one of the house pilings. I came out with a plastic container and captured a very large wolf spider. I put the open side of the spider’s container on top of the open scorpion container, expecting a fairly short meal preparation time of about 10 seconds, but the spider, possibly sensing the imminent consummation of his condition made a dash for a very slim opening I had accidentally created while tapping on the plastic, trying to get him to fall off the ceiling of his container, as it were. He ran across the table in my direction at an extremely high rate of speed, then jumped off the table very close to my feet, causing me to quickly backup in a reflexive action, causing me to know over the bench that I had been sitting on. It was all quite comical. I put the scorpion’s lid back on and placed his container back on the shelf, offering my condolences regarding the loss of his meal. Perhaps because of his advanced state of hunger – or perhaps because of the example set by the aforementioned escapee, and, perhaps due in part to the fact that I apparently failed to secure the lid with enough force to ensure his security, our little scorpion mascot disappeared at some point late in the night. Keep in mind that the shelf he was on was directly on the other side of a wooden divider from our bedroom. The divider was made of loosely spaced boards, any one of which he could easily have passed through. On the other hand, our floor is also composed of loosely spaced board, any one of which he might have simply fallen though to the ground, sixteen inches below that.

I don’t recall everything Jennifer said, exactly, but I think she questioned the wisdom of keeping a pet if I couldn’t properly care for it. I was saddened by the sudden disappearance of our pet, to say the least.

We piled into the 336 and headed off to Guatemala City. The air was a clear as could be and we quickly climbed from sea-level to 9,500’ and made a bee-line for Guatemala City. From our cruising altitude, we could plainly see almost all of the volcanoes in the country, from Pacaya, rising 8,372’, south of Guatemala City to Agua, at 12,335’ and Fuego and Acatenango, both rising about 13,000’. Farther to the south-west, near Lake Atitlan we could see the volcano Atitlàn and San Pedro. Much farther west, near Quetzaltenango, and San Marcos, Tajumulco rose clearly in the distance to 13,845’. The active volcanoes, Pacaya, Fuego, San Pedro and Santiaguito did not seem to be producing any smoke at all this day. There had been days when I could see thick plums of smoke and ash rising high into the sky, into or above the cruising altitude of most airliners, causing air traffic control to deviate some flights in order to avoid the extremely abrasive and dangerous ash clouds.

My landing at La Aurora Airport in Guatemala City (Elevation 5,000’) was designed to impress any pilots that might happen to be within view or taxiing into position for take-off. As it happened, the crew from the AGAPE hangar, another missionary aviation organizations, was out on the grass next to the west taxiway, portable radios in hand, watching my technique as I approached and landed using my typical short field technique. It is all the more impressive when you consider the length of the runway here, at 9,800’ and the amount of runway we actually used to land, about 800’. The guys there gave me the thumbs-up as I exited on the first taxiway exit – “Kilo”.