John & Anne Wiley

2012/10/06

Textures of Time

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Inner World,Nature,Random — John @ 00:00

I lived in San Jose (well, the Campbell ‘burb really) during my high school years, so it’s a little magical seeing it from the air these many years later. As if there’s a special texture to the way it sprawls south from the Bay between two mountain ranges. The evening light of our flight back home to SB added a touch of melancholy to this enigmatic vacant section.

0367 Forgotten Dreams?

0367 Forgotten Dreams?

I was curious about this large vacant tract surrounded by houses, and the curved rows of trees. Seems to me it was once a golf course, and now just serves as pasture to a few happy cattle. Since it’s so near the Reid Hillview airport (just on the other side of Cunningham Lake) far across the valley from Campbell, I never saw it when living there. My love of all things aviation did draw me in my youth to the larger SJC airport, where I’d park beneath the approach end, to dream on the wide variety of landing planes. A few miles later I gazed

0368 Hills of Home

0368 Hills of Home

across the rolling brown hills and felt again the warmth of such scenes bring to my soul. For people of different regions, this velvety golden brown holds little appeal. To me, the open vistas and clusters of oak forest bring a contrast of colors and textures that nourish me with variety and perspective. A little later as shadows grew even longer we passed Pinnacles again.

0372 Pinnacle Panorama

0372 Pinnacle Panorama

This time there was far less smoke and we were lower with a slightly different track through the area. Each time we pass, different formations of stone textured by time leap out to the eye. Like the way this long furrowed ridge dances with the light. Nearby a cluster of outcrops with different weathered faces forms a varied family watching our passage in silent witness.

0377 Silent Witness

0377 Silent Witness

A neighboring low round pillar squats near this angular sharp ridge, as if waiting patiently there to remind us of all the eons invested in achieving the texture we so enjoyed approaching this particular sunset. Appreciating the bones of our planet, perhaps helps us awaken more fully to the memories that have carved our own souls.

0394 Time Tale

0394 Time Tale

2012/10/04

Cruzin’

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,Random — John @ 04:36

The day we flew to San Francisco, we flew first to the foothills above Santa Cruz and got this lovely view of fog nibbling at the shore.

0224 Cruz Fog

0224 Cruz Fog

Another thing we enjoyed from above, was a glimpse of what most of the rest of the family was doing on the ground. They went on a train ride in the mountains above Santa Cruz.

0219 Trains & Planes

0219 Trains & Planes

Looks like the mostly volunteer organization has done a lot to preserve and share the joys of trains. When we went back to San Jose for a change in passengers before the flight to San Francisco, this bubble building caught our attention.

0225 Housing Bubble?

0225 Housing Bubble?

I’m curious what this building is about, but haven’t yet looked up. It has some qualities of an observatory telescope, yet the angles we see inside make it look like some gigantic device. You’ve already seen some of the amazing views we got of the San Francisco area, so here’s a view of iconic Stanford University we enjoyed on the way back to SJ.

0349 Stanford

0349 Stanford

This campus I’ve explored several times over the years looks so different from the air. For example, I’d never seen that oval field at the left edge of the pic before. Last up is a view of SJC, the big airport serving San Jose, dominated by the big successful regional carrier. Before it got too expensive and we switched to homey Hillview airport we used to land here on our SJ trips, and it was fun landing alongside planes like these on SJC’s parallel runways.

0365 SJC

0365 SJC

2012/10/02

Relativity

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 07:42

Way way back when I was getting my pilots license, seven years ago, flying to an airport more than 50 miles was a Big Adventure. Sure seems like thirty years ago! Now that I’ve landed in every U.S. state and Canadian province, anything less than 300 miles is a relaxing day trip. Such was the case flying from SB to San Jose to visit relatives not long after we’d just flown past it coming home from the AB Joy adventure. The first pic I like from that flight is this hippie house on a hill.

3797 Round House

3797 Round House

OK, you’re right – it’s not a hippie house, or in fact a house of any kind. It is indeed a water tank. But for some reason I’ve always thought it would be cool to live in an old wooden water tower, and put a sun deck on the roof. Anyway I like how the tank, white aerial survey X, and the grass trim shape all interact visually. Next up is a velvety texture.

3817 Velvet Ground

3817 Velvet Ground

I like how the undulations show up, and how they mix with the adjoining vineyard geometry. But I also get a sense of stressed land that’s saturated with salt or something that’s making those whitish areas. This was actually a pretty smokey flight, due to all the fires back then (8/31), so most of the pix didn’t turn out well. Like this muted one of the visually striking Pinnacles.

3834 Hazy Pinnacles

3834 Hazy Pinnacles

Descending into San Jose along the 101 I enjoyed the interplay of wind, water and trees at the small reservoir(s) between 101 and the old Monterey Highway.

3843 Reflections

3843 Reflections

I reflected for a moment on the many times I’d been along one of those roads, and the relatives living and gone who lived nearby. Also the new relative whose birthday we gathered to celebrate. So many changes and milestones between birth and death, yet perhaps relatively few.

0138 Relativity

0138 Relativity

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