John & Anne Wiley

2009/10/11

Over the Top

Filed under: Big Adventure,Flying,Has Photos — John @ 03:17
Today’s flight started just north of Chicago where we saw some remarkable mansions, then turned south along the lakeshore to look down and wave at the people who live in the manses. Before small planes, we used to always go to the tops of such buildings to look around. Now even the Sears tower near this one, seems quaint somehow.


Even from our sanctimonious cheap seats, this skyline is breathtaking. 😉

We decided to skip going into Chicago so we could avoid a cold snap and ride fresh tailwinds taking us toward what we hope will be good weather in Maine by the time we get there. It’s delightful to watch the fall colors getting brighter on each day of our trip, and today some brilliant reds appeared occasionally. To feed our state hopping obsession we had to land in Indiana, but Gary didn’t look appealing even though we still have that song from Music Man stuck in our heads. Instead we chose tiny Hobart airport, and it had enough character to merit a few minutes’ stroll around the grounds. Then onward for a detour into Michigan (obsession) for a quick stop at Benton Harbor for fuel and a stroll through an informal gallery of aviation photos adorning the terminal walls. Hopping back in the plane we passed over Toledo and got distant glimpses of Detroit and Cleveland. Just east of Toledo there were several suburban tracts with ponds much bigger than the big houses, and we wondered what the story is. Nearly all seemed to have some indication of swimming facilities, but they’re much bigger than Santa Barbarian swimming pools even next to mansions. Maybe they’re also for irrigation?

Approaching Akron for the night, we were intrigued by this shape. Looking at the original photo my hunch was confirmed: these are baseball diamonds. Little League perhaps?

Tonight we are in an inexpensive room that’s larger than many SB homes, at a new Akron hotel. It has two large flat screen TVs, and amenities better than many luxury hotels. We had planned to camp, and brought an old bike to ride, but so far all we’ve done is fly and stay in hotels! Time was, tenting at 35F was fun. Now our limits seem to have shifted a bit. Maybe if the warm weather materializes in Maine we’ll finally get to live rough. Right now we’re not complaining, unless we think about how our budget is affected.


Tomorrow we hope to visit my ancestral lands in Clarion County just north of Pittsburgh and then carry on east until sunset approaches over our shoulders as our heads are brimming with another day of spectacular sights.

2009/10/10

Sunny Houston

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure,Flying,Has Photos,Nature — John @ 01:33
This morning was rainy in Dubuque, so we talked the hotel shuttle driver into a quick detour to the river just so we could peek at the Mighty Miss. There stands an old shot tower next to a former brewery on the river walk. The tower has no connection with the kind of shots you might associate with beer. This was a tower they poured a stream of molten lead from. It passed through a mesh that made it into lead droplets that then fell into the water. This resulted in lead shot for muskets or some such weapon.
Since it was rainy on our intended route to Chicago and we have an airplane, we decided to visit sunny Houston. Not in Texas though, this one is in the vast forest reserve at the southeast corner of Minnesota. The airport terminal is slightly larger than the phone booth, both dwarfed by a magnificent barn in the distance.
We flew along the Mississippi a bit, and enjoyed the mazes of little islands that evoked images of boys rafting downstream.

We headed for Chicago just as sunset approached, chasing the storm that had been keeping us away earlier. A few minutes before landing there were two short vertical rainbows bracketing our path as if an invitation to the windy city. This pic out the passenger window shows the rainbow that was on our right (toward the left of the pic).
Tomorrow we’ll look at weather and decide whether to explore Chicago or fly along the lake shore for some pix and the continue on our way east.

2009/10/08

Heaven and Heartland

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure,Flying,Has Photos,Nature — John @ 05:21

Today feels like a week since yesterday, partly because we landed in four states. We started in Liberal, KS where I got an aerial photo of Dorothy Gale’s place complete with a new yellow brick road.

Almost on cue for the Oz story, a sudden and ferocious storm sprang up and we passed smoothly but cautiously under what looked very much like the eye of a brewing tornado that probably would have picked up the Gale place again but for high level winds that interrupted the process.

We breezed along flying slow yet going half again our maximum speed, due to a smooth and powerful tailwind. Had we climbed higher where it was faster, we might have doubled our max speed, but we wanted to stay low enough to enjoy the incredible scenery.
We stopped for a quick break and some fuel in Kingman, KS only to realize the storm was racing along right behind us.
We passed near Wichita and Topeka to enjoy the sights there and all along the way, but didn’t land.
We pressed on to Falls City, NB where we stopped for a brief taste of an intriguing place. Again the storm was looming, but now it looked more diffuse and less threatening. Still, we decided to keep going while we could hitchhike on the wind.
We stopped for fuel in Maryville, MO where there’s a beautiful university campus with a glorious white bell tower.
Just as the sun set we arrived in Iowa City, IA amid a ferocious crosswind that had us flying at a 45 degree angle to our track just to stay on course. Fortunately the wind dropped to a manageable level over the runway so I was able to land (rather than going to a nearby airport with a runway directly into the wind) after making a low pass be sure. We found a great hotel downtown where we wandered the city center and settled in a jazz cafe for dinner. What an amazing journey this is, and we still have so many Big Adventures yet to come!

2009/10/05

Angel Over Us

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure,Flying — John @ 04:23

Another Good Omen: an angel passed over our heads today, delighting everyone. We were in a car driving from Ramona to Black Mountain, and the Blue Angels aerobatic team was doing a show over Miramar. We tried to spot them in the distance, managed to see a close formation and a magnificent vertical blooming maneuver. As we talked about that I saw one coming at low level and high speed. It passed directly over our car in a 90 degree bank with vapor trails coming off the wing tips. Breathtaking! I know you’ll want to see the excellent image I captured of this. Alas, I know of no way to download it from my vivid memory and there was nowhere near enough time to grab the camera. So I hope these few words can evoke something in your heart akin to what we felt watching this fortuitous brush with aeronautical greatness. We’d intended to actually attend the show, but got distracted with everything else. Tomorrow we hope to get out early headed for Santa Fe, and pick at least one stop to stretch and refuel.

2009/10/04

Sleepy Saturday

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure,Flying — John @ 02:21

We were pretty tired today, so we slept until 9am. Dad’s 90th is tomorrow, so we joined the family taking him to the Wild Animal Park today. There’s more planned tomorrow, but also of interest to me today: driving the freeway we saw a 4-jet formation that I think was the Canadian Snowbirds team. They did a low pass with one leaving a dotted smoke trail, then returned to do a formation loop above the show just as we passed. Since I wasn’t driving, they then treated me to a formation spiral. Just before we were out of view, I was able to look back and see two of them passing low above the show with one inverted. Now that is fun!

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