John & Anne Wiley

Life has many delights, and we’ve been enjoying a bounty. Dear friend Julie is here, and we took her flying again as a followup to her short tour of the valley between Stanley & Smiley Creek, ID. This time it was over an hour slowly wandering the skies above the Santa Barbara area. Afterward she said, “I’ve moved from survival to enjoyment.” Quite a rapid shift, given that she was scared of flying before these two delightful jaunts.

We also delighted in the flight from San Diego to SB last week. Passing the Mt. Soledad area where Anne’s family lived years ago, La Jolla and the Shores looked especially colorful.

6785 La Jolla Delight

In the “Every Flight, Different Delight” department, this time we went high. Usually either 3,500′ or 4,500′ is our altitude crossing the LA airspace, and our route is Queen Mary in Long Beach Harbor to Santa Monica. This time we were at 10,500′ and well offshore past San Pedro, where we got a view better than this pic shows of Catalina.

6796 Catalina Delight

Then we turned North to cross toward Laguna Beach, and got a whole new look at the point we usually see only in the distance.

6798 Palos Verdes Delight

In this zoomed view you can make out the lighthouse, and the ocean bottom contour that makes for a fluffy margin along the shore.

6801 Light Delight

Even the LA Basin was a delight, since we could see the whole towering city and its less tall siblings like Sherman Oaks and Santa Monica and the mountains beyond.

6817 LA Delight

Before long we delighted in the rock outcrops near Camarillo, with Pt. Mugu and Port Hueneme drawing our eye to the Channel Islands beyond.

6824 Camarillo Delight

It’s boring when I keep saying that after flying every state and province in North America we most enjoy Santa Barbara, but here it is again. It was especially delightful to quietly descend from our high transit past the harbor, and feel our hearts swell with love of Our Town.

6880 SB Delight

We flew to San Diego last week, and saw some boundaries along the way. First we crossed the mountains dividing the Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Monica and L.A. Looking across those peaks, it was a clear boundary between two worlds. One still mostly wild like it was centuries ago, the other totally tame.

6581 Distant Downtown L.A.

Another contrast was between “the basin” of urban sprawl that we call L.A., and the downtown core floating in the sea of city up toward the mountains. It was a “clear” day by L.A. standards, but of course there’s still quite a bit of haze. Just having that many people breathing in the valley probably produces a lot of visible smog, so maybe at some point all city residents will wear gas masks to clean the air inhaled and exhaled. Why do I notice the smog here more than in NYC?

6586 L.A. Basin

Next up is the San Diego border, enforced by I.N.S. It seems that enough people from Mexico have managed to cross the U.S. border, that people driving on the freeway from S.D. to L.A. are inspected here. I’m no longer surprised that U.S. citizens don’t object to this, but it’s still a small pleasure being able to fly past it without being inspected. Yet.

6668 Redundant Border

Flying offshore along Camp Pendleton I spotted a giant hovercraft that crosses the borders between air, water and land. It’s remarkable that such a big and heavy device can carry troops and equipment, while still floating on a cushion of air. So cool!

6682 USMC Hovercraft

Along the way we saw many spots where the “red tide” reported in news media makes the waves glow at night. We had hoped to walk one of the S.D. beaches after dark to see and play in it, but didn’t find the time. This one at La Jolla Shores was quite a strong one, so it probably was spectacular that night.

6748 Boundaries

In daylight the boundaries are between sea and shore, red and blue. After dark there is a magical boundary between movement and stillness in the water that becomes a boundary between light and dark.

After a solemn short sailing out of the marina at Santa Cruz yesterday, we flew low over the same spot today.

7055 Sailor Site

At the harbor mouth, we’d floated slowly past the lighthouse on the breakwater at the left. Then we dined in the Crow’s Nest on the other side of the outlet just below the rows of moored small craft. There is a special magic for us, in looking both up and down. Floating on water, and floating on air. Like seasons of life, perspectives are enriched by contrast. Our muse followed us along the beach to Paharo Dunes where memories and marriages were formed years ago.

7087 Paharo

Skirting the Monterey airspace where the city was under a solid blanket, we popped over the low hills to weave among the scattered scud along Big Sur.

7128 Big Sur Coast

As I typed the name just now, images flooded back from our magic carpet ride along there a few hours ago and a great long sigh swept over me. I’ll be reviewing our collection of pix and uploading more here, on Edhat and on my Photo Page (links at right) over the next few days. sigh…