We planned to fly down the coast from Medford, but not long after leaving I-5 heading southwest we could see a solid low cloud layer completely covering the water. Tomorrow I’ll post some pix of a few clear areas we saw, but before long we headed inland along the 101. We decided to stop at Sonoma for a stretch, lunch, and fuel for Tripp. The landing was fun, with a short (2500 ft.) runway with trees at both ends and strong gusting crosswind, but easier than several of our landings on the Big Adventure flight last Fall. Ron the airport manager loaned us his pickup so we could drive the two miles into town for a sandwich. What a glorious little community!
From there we went southeast to clear the complex airspace over the Bay Area. We’d planned to fly over the Golden Gate and possibly SF, but the whole bay was covered in a blanket of white (another great reason to go along the eastern foothills). Soon we’d dialed in SBA on both GPSs and were headed directly for home. Then our thoughts turned to low clouds and fog. As night fell at about Paso Robles we were high over familiar terrain, and could pick out the lights of SLO and Oceano which was amazingly in the clear. But over Santa Maria hung some low ragged clouds. Once we could pick up the aviation weather radio from Santa Ynez we at least knew it would be possible to camp there if SBA was like most of the coast under the blanket. Then with everything set for maximum range we could dimly hear SBA weather say “landing Runway 25.” Now for anyone who knows this airport that can only mean one thing: clear skies!! 🙂
So thanks to this pleasant surprise we are now sitting amid piles of stuff (amazingly tall, given that they all came from trusty Tripp), breathing stale air with all the fans going, and beginning to enjoy the pleasures that only Home can bring. We gave each other a quick Alexander treatment, and now I’m sipping a glass of pinot. Life is so very sweet. It will take days for us to put things back into some semblance of order, and the rest of our lives to process the magnificent adventure we’ve just had from SBA to Soo to Ketch and back. Even typing those few words my head is brimming with unbelievable images and delightful memories. I may never get over the surprise of our good fortune in finding each other, building a life together that is perfect for us, enjoying the warmth of family and friends, still having good health, and even having access to flight and enough funds remaining to fly off on adventures like this. What a pleasant surprise indeed! My heart is full.
John & Anne Wiley 
Welcome home!
Comment by Nancy Oster — 2010/08/09 @ 06:26