Adventurous, passionate, and absolute fun are words frequently used to describe Mo Cruikshank. After growing up in Santa Barbara she worked for the FBI in San Francisco and later became a flight attendant traveling the world. Mo was just as intense with her hobbies as she was with work: golfing, gambling, tennis, camping and fishing. Having survived breast cancer twice, she openly discussed what she wanted after her death including places to scatter her ashes. There were many: Henry’s Beach in Santa Barbara, Honolua Bay Maui, Freemont Street in Las Vegas, and her home in Phoenix, AZ. But her number one place, top of the list, was Kent’s Lake, Utah where she camped and fished every summer for the last 20 years.
Being in a remote location, the task of getting her to Kent’s Lake proved to be a difficult one. Nearly every summer since her death, plans were made but then something would always come up: the distance was too far, other family members wanted to be there, a lack of camping gear, no place to stay in the area, wrong vehicle to travel dirt roads – the list is endless. This year I started talking about getting her to Kent’s Lake and my husband threw out a wild idea: we know a helicopter pilot so why not see if we can rent a chopper and get him to fly us to the lake. Not only costly, we couldn’t land the chopper in the area so getting to Kent’s Lake this summer was going out the window again.
On August 1st, I realized at the end of the month it will be the 10 year anniversary of Mo’s death. How could I let 10 years go by without completing her wishes? Getting her to her most important place became my mission. My husband’s wild idea eventually led me to A Journey with Wings and Jamie confirmed she could make this happen. After securing the plans with Jamie, I then realized not only will I complete Mo’s wishes but scattering from the air is a beautiful tribute to her flight attendant days.
