From the hills between Santa Barbara and Santa Inez, the day’s/year’s end sunset, reflected in trusty Tripp’s wing.
0701 Sunset Wing
GrandGirl turned one year just days ago and is about to experience her 1st Santa.
Grandpa drums her a tune…and is enchanted with their bright connection, reflected in her eyes.
1647 G'Daughter & G'pa with Great Aunt
~by Anne
Unlike my early life, happiness is all around now. Inside and out. Filling me up. Lots of things get me giggling, smiling, and laughing out loud. There are also many things that evoke in me the sort of happiness that simply glows in radiant beams of inner joy. Time with friends and family. Deep conversation, playful moments, and just Being with Anne. Flying of course, as when we flew past L.A. on a recent moderately smoggy and overcast day.
1455 L.A.
…and out the other window is the view of L.A. perhaps more familiar to most people.
8430 Hollywood
I deeply enjoy time with children, and there’s a new special child in my life now of course. Her good nature and frequent squeals of delight just thrill my heart, and she often reminds me of another baby girl who is now her mother.
1678 Grandpa Is Happy
Surfing the air offshore along SoCA beaches is popular with birds, hang gliders, and a few aviators like us. In sunset light, the sandstone bluffs are even more colorful as the mood of beachcombers shifts toward evening.
8322 Beach Bluff
Nearby the neighbors seem to have pooled their resources, investing their individual resources in a surfside pool rather than share a collective one.
8232 Tide Pools
I wonder if some of them are low enough to be reached by waves, but maybe they all use sea water pumped up from offshore. Other neighbors have their own large grotto, at least for now.
8230 Hollow Lawn
Am I becoming Italy obsessed? After twice flying over Venice recently, just now I looked up the location of another spot that captured my imagination. Despite first impressions, this isn’t a home next to a desert freeway.
8129 Sand Lot
Those patterns in the sand were probably made by the machines that drive around like lawn mowers, cleaning trash and bottles from the beach sand on the wide strand at Naples. Yes, a few miles from Venice the L.A. beach area boasts Naples.
Just like the language we speak greatly affects how we see the world, so too does our mode of transportation. We were in Ireland years ago, and traveled the same road twice: once in a tiny rental car, and again in a large bus. In the car we saw little other than the lovely dark green hedges that line nearly all roads there up to a height above that of the little car. In the bus we enjoyed great expanses of breathtaking variations in indescribable shades of green countryside, and a variety of intriguing stone ruins. Another example of transportation consciousness is in this post, because I’ve wandered the L.A. area for years and never suspected that Naples is there. I’ve driven past it many times on Hwy. 1 and on Ocean Blvd, passing on either side of it. Only now having flown over do I see it floating in Alamitos Bay, begging for a closer look.
8127 Naples
Flying is heavenly even in the city of the Angels, L.A. Approaching San Pedro we got a view of Angel’s Gate. That’s the park just left of the point at the mouth of the harbor.
8089 SW San Pedro
Recognize this next attraction from a movie? The “Angel” link above takes you to the San Pedro website with info on the park and many other nearby attractions.
8103 Icon
A short walk South of there is the 1874 Point Fermin Lighthouse, still a beacon but now for tourists and local events. Beyond the Vincent Thomas Bridge to Long Beach, a look at what we were breathing and above that the snow-capped peaks giving a reminder of what people might have seen from atop the light back in 1874.
8113 Smog Sandwich
John & Anne Wiley 
You must be logged in to post a comment.