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
Hi, Anne here – You’ll notice a difference in quality from John’s but I thought I’d add a post from our short but delicious flight. As we rose today I felt amazingly blessed with what a lovely and unique area we get to fly with its of combination of fields, towns, hills, mountains, ocean, islands – all so visible immediately upon takeoff.
My newer point & shoot camera is substandard for the motions of the plane, but here are my favorites. The green fields and orchards are actually the major part of this view. This shows some of the city of Goleta and looks back toward the airport we’d just left and, at the coast, Isla Vista & UCSB, with SB in the very far distance.
1565 Fields, Town, Ocean, and Airport
The coastal tide was really Low as we flew above today and the striations in the sea floor appealed to me. A fun surprise was seeing the reflection in Tripp’s wheel cover in the bottom right – not only the light from the low sun, but also the cowl and nose wheel of Tripp herself!
1579 Low Tide Shapes & Tripp Reflects
The swirls of ocean floor were so visible today:
1569 Low Tide Swirls
What a delightful flight! I’m sure John will share more of this flight in a day or two as he got some great and totally different views from his camera and side of the plane…
~by Anne
On a recent flight to L.A. we rediscovered something worth remembering: get to the Point. That is, if possible, get to Point Mugu. It’s beautiful, and there are often fun treats there for aviation buffs.
7900 Mugu Munitions
Next to the intricately beautiful wetlands at the beach, some munitions bunkers hunker down into the sand to stoically invite the somber question: what’s inside?
Whether in the air or on the ground, there are always aircraft and related things to take in as well. This trip was no exception, with a colorful background for two Navy E2 carrier-based radar planes flying in circles around one of the runways.
7903 E2 For You
With no other private planes around, it felt like they were doing their practice carrier landings on a small part of the big runway – just for us.
After some years in SB my friend and fellow pilot Zubair moved to the wrong coast, settling near Boston. I tried to talk him out of it, but I have to admit he’s happier there. Tonite looking thru pix from our MeriTimes Adventure I found this view of his cozy home in the woods there, nestled among the magnificent Fall colors. I think that’s his beautiful wife Momina standing outside the front door (click the pic to see the larger version).
9862 Right Stuff
Clearly his choice of coast was right after all. Still wrong for me, but perfect for him right now. He has at least yielded to my relentless bugging him about getting back in the air after a hiatus of several years, as you’ll see on his blog (click his name above). Sadly though, he doesn’t have a great plane like Tripp with windows that open and wings up out of the way for viewing the planetary pleasures. But even if in the “wrong” plane for crisp pix like this, at least he’s flying, right? See what I mean about relentlessly bugging him? 😉
Along the coast toward L.A. past Ventura, we admired the harbor and marina and several ships at Port Hueneme just beyond.
7880 Port Hueneme
It’s fun to snap something during a flight, then take the time to google it later. I wondered why this ship was the only of its kind there.
7884 USS Paul Foster
Turns out it’s the USS Paul Foster, decomissioned in 2003 after an illustrious career that began in 1976. Clearly the story didn’t end there, and according to the wiki link above she’s just been used to test a new laser weapon. Thee other ships were docked nearby.
7886 I Saw Three Ships
The big blue one is the Japanese vehicle carrier NYK Cronus Leader. The red one is NYK Cool container ship Ditlev Lauritzen, and the closer one is container ship Hansa Visby. Before looking these up, I had no idea there are several websites that follow global shipping movements. Sort of like “train spotting” I guess, including people who post photos for everyone to enjoy. Next up was a fabulous view past the slough and Point Mugu NAS to the distant mountains.
7895 Point Mugu
John & Anne Wiley 
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