Have you thanked a fire fighter today?

Today we made a spur-of-the-moment visit to fire station No. 11 on Riverside Drive. Little did I know, when I was just trying to think of something to kill time, that we’d end up having the most awesome, world-class tour and fire station experience. We got the entire experience from riding in the fire engine & the aerial truck, to honking the horns & turning on the lights, to seeing the bunk room & the radio control room, to having our wonderful guide, “Private Archie”, get them to ring the bell, to even having a REAL fire call go out and watching the aerial truck take off! The guys did exactly what they had just told us they would…hopped into their gear, jumped in the truck and took off – in less than two minutes! It was unbelievable! When we rode in the trucks Archie let the boys talk into the CB, which was just the loud speaker that they use to make announcements to passers-by or cars not getting out of the way. Well, ol’ Sam picked it up and said, “Oh yeah, we gone get our drink on!”…to anyone in ear shot on Riverside Drive! It gets better… When we got into the aerial truck he picked up the CB again, but this time (unbeknownst to me or Archie) it was the CB that calls to ALL of the fire stations in Macon in addition to the main dispatch. On that occasion he just said, "breaker one nine". The dispatcher called back and asked, "Engine 30, do you have traffic?" I was dying!!! Archie just responded “negative”. Thank God we didn’t get in trouble. When we left I couldn’t thank them enough. I’m sure the boys don’t realize just what an amazing and unique experience they had. When we got home we made brownies and chocolate chip cookies and took them back to the station. We made some pictures and Archie gave the boys their own fire hats. I can’t wait to go back!