John & Anne Wiley

NOTE: this isn’t the first post in this “North by Northwest” story. For that, scroll to the bottom of this page and read each post in reverse order until you reach this one at the top again. After reading this one, scroll to the bottom again and click the “Previous” link to repeat the process there until you’ve read all the pages. If you have trouble understanding this, welcome to the crowd (and look at the step by step directions on the “Adventures” link in the right column of every page). Crazy system, eh?

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Long ago in a land nearby, a boy sat in a chair looking out the window. Outside were birds and clouds, and in the classroom where he sat the subject was Geography. Today is very different: I fly among the birds and clouds, love education in general and am thankful for teachers in particular, and have also rediscovered Geography. For me there’s nothing quite like flying around in a region to put it on my mental map, and get me interested in studying its geography.  Sure, I still mix up some of the places less familiar to me like Wisconsin and Michigan, but having now flown there I can take a moment to tour the mental map. Of course, after a few days in Oshkosh next week that part of my mental map will be clearer. 🙂

So today I also realized that if you’ve been following any of this you might enjoy perusing our gMaps tentative route yourself (duh!). Let me know if it doesn’t work for you to click this link. It’s fun to zoom in and check stuff out, and you’ll soon start guessing where we’d deviate to look at stuff or land and explore on the ground.

I’ve also started looking at terrain. Even though we’ll be flying among some fairly high peaks, by going along the general track of highways it’s likely we’ll be crossing major ranges at their lowest points. When we flew the Big Adventure in Flash, such things were much more of a concern. Tripp adds a significant margin to our ease in crossing mountain ranges, so it’s fun to imagine a route with maximum scenic wonders.

Below is our approximate route so far, in gMaps Terrain view (in the “More” menu). It’s nice to see where the mountains are, but the Maps view with terrain and other “More” features turned off was nice for clearly showing where there are parks. We discovered long ago that there are good reasons why parks are set aside, and often those reasons are especially spectacular from the air. Anne has kindly volunteered to research the parks along our route, in case we want to divert to see something here and there along our general track. Interestingly though, we’ve found that some incredible views aren’t on the maps or travel guides because those are designed for motorists, hikers and cyclists.

In coming days I’ll start researching airports along our route, and that too could produce some deviations from this initial highway track. It’s guaranteed we won’t be following all those jagged curves, because it’s fun to fly in straighter lines except when we wander off to look at something. Can you tell we’re getting excited? 🙂

We’re getting swept up in the idea of flying another Big Adventure. Now in addition to requesting your ideas of places to see, we welcome any ideas on what to call this one. Big Adventure II is our name so far, but something new would be much more fun. How about “Northwest Passage?”

As you can see, we’re still wanting to cross into Canada from Oshkosh and then go West by Northwest. Now we’re considering a short hop across inhospitable terrain from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan, instead of the long flight to Fairbanks and Anchorage along the highways. Maybe on the next trip, if we do visit AK and get a taste of what flying there is like. By all accounts, AK has a pilot’s frame of mind so we’ll access a large amount of expertise by making a short wilderness crossing.

Our current vision is through Edmonton rather than Calgary, but we wanted to investigate that option too, and there’s a chance we’d go to AK via Edmonton and return via Calgary and South through Glacier Park based on feedback and lots of variables.

By downsizing the AK part and minimizing wilderness, we’ll probably also feel more comfortable to forego carrying a gun. So here’s the current vision, with the highways in blue and our approximate route in shades of green (light green on the homeward leg). Any pilot will know that this will change a lot based on airport and fuel options, and weather. Low/slow pilots like me also tend to make changes based on whimsy (see it, like it, go look, maybe land if there’s a suitable airport), and hunch (this looks like a cool town to explore). Even so, it’s likely that our actual flight path will be considerably shorter than the driving distance given by gMaps.