Our hopscotch flight from Seattle home to Santa Barbara was a great way to visit friends and family along the way. When we used to drive on such trips, we soon tired of taking turns at the wheel and sometimes felt as if we’d never arrive. Flying now, we enjoy the journey and the destinations along our way. For example, by car we’d have missed these opulent manses on the lakeshore just over the hill from downtown Seattle.
6641 Mercerview Manses
We wouldn’t have fought traffic to visit “you dub” (University of Washington), but mere minutes after our Renton takeoff it lay before us in this beautiful watery context.
6644 UW
Water defines the PNW, like in quiet small lakes with Disneyesque Twain islands to explore in that little white boat in this pic.
6711 Explorer’s Island
Water works also abound in the sand bars of river bends like this north of Silverlake.
6721 Rambling River
We saw a sign of the freedom expressed by people here, in the thin crescent of mowed green atop this pointy hill far from view of the roads.
6729 Hilltop Freedom
Looking closer we could make out an ultralight aircraft poised to bring an effectively free rush of delight to a rural aviator.
6724 Free Ride
After our enchanting visit in Grant’s Pass, our magic carpet Tripp lofted us over lush forests along the romantic Rogue River past its namesake town.
6740 Rogue River
A few minutes later we were in California, and it was as though someone had turned off the water. Slopes near the almost dry Shastina Lake were barren and brown, yet snow melt from Mt. Shasta cut a ribbon of green in lower ground.
6764 Drying Trend
We are happy to live in the last country on earth where ordinary people can (barely) afford the freedom of flight. Where dreamers like me can partake of this breathtaking experience known to our species for just over a century. Migrating toward home, the journey itself can bring delights equal to the destinations.
John & Anne Wiley 
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