John & Anne Wiley

2012/10/08

Waves

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 08:51

Life breaks over us, and I like it when we can laugh. Sometimes I’ve wanted the waves of joy, grief, and challenge to stop. But of course, I love Life and so they continue to surprise me. In recent years I laugh more often. But nothing heavy about this post for me. Just more of the delights from our flight along the Five Cities coast, picking up where we left off with this one of my fav manse in Pismo.

0447 Pismo Manse

0447 Pismo Manse

I’d already posted a bigger and different view of this wonderful place on my Photo Page, and someone just sent me info about it that I’ve added in an update there. Nearby I was struck by how similar the offshore rocks are to the Oregon coast we recently enjoyed.

0450 Whitewash

0450 Whitewash

These wear a much thicker coating of accumulated white from years of happy birds though.

0451 Sea Caves

0451 Sea Caves

This stretch of coast also boasts many sea caves like the ones on the Oregon coast. Yet at the Pismo Pier the cliffs give way to broad beaches as the coastline angles South. It’s well worn by ATVs, RVs, and SUVs, yet still offers a great place for one horsepower riding.

 

0459 Beach Riders

0459 Beach Riders

In this last shot I’ll share from that flight you can see our beloved Oceano airport at the upper-right, the beginnings of the vast dunes at the right edge, and I like the hook of water where the estuary meets the sea.

0460 Oceano

0460 Oceano

Wonderful waves of relaxation wash over me looking at these pix. I hope they convey at least a little of that easy peace into your day too.

2012/10/07

Fly Di

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 04:27

Our friend Di loves to fly. So it’s always fun when we have her along. A few days after we got back from SJ & SF, the three of us were talking about how to celebrate our shared birth month. After listening patiently to the gals for a while, one of them asked my opinion. “We have an airplane,” I began. Somehow neither of them had thought of flying! Needless to say, that’s what we did. 🙂

0426 Avila Light

0426 Avila Light

I like lighthouses, so it’s fun trying to get a good snap of the light at Avila Beach and I like how this one came out. But I’ve jumped ahead some here. We flew first to the great little Oceano airport and walked to Old Juan’s for a late lunch.

0599 Kite Watching

0599 Kite Watching

After walking down to the beach and watching the kite surfers for a while, we bundled back into Tripp and I flew along the coast out to the light so the gals could enjoy the view. Of course, that meant I got to snap on the way back.

0427 Avila Bay

0427 Avila Bay

When we passed the end of the pier I snapped this of the attractive main tourist scene where Anne and I had strolled a few times. We discovered that right outside Oceano airport there’s a bus to Pismo and from there a trolley to Avila, so we’ll probably do it again sometime, but on this day we three just saw it from here.

0428 Avila Scene

0428 Avila Scene

Well, more accurately since we don’t have telephoto eyes, we saw it from here:

0429 Avila Pier

0429 Avila Pier

As you’re well aware, another of my fascinations is sea caves so here’s a view of some along the bluffs.

0432 Sea Caves

0432 Sea Caves

Here’s a wide shot for context. Looks like people park in the lot at the right and there are plenty of trails. I haven’t often seen kayaks here, but it looks like a great place to paddle on calm days like this.

0436 Cave Context

0436 Cave Context

Further along, in the Shell Beach and Pismo Beach parts of this coast are some great waterfront homes and a few mansions. I wonder if the boulders these people had piled on the beach have slowed the inevitable erosion of these cliffs.

0443 Boulder Barrier

0443 Boulder Barrier

I have more pix I like from this “birthday” flight, so I’ll share them in the next post.

 

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

2012/09/30

Last Leg

Filed under: AB Joy Adventure,Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random — John @ 06:59

I’m feeling it all over again. The way it was knowing that the day we left McBeth would be the last on our wonderful AB Joy adventure. Luckily it was varied and beautiful just like every other day of the trip. We began with a berry good walk under some tall trees to stretch our legs and stain our faces with wild blackberry juice.

3681 Forest Road

3681 Forest Road

Joy’s not in this pic, because she was already foraging. Before long Tripp had lifted us effortlessly above it all again, and I circled back toward the airport to gain altitude.

3699 McBeth

3699 McBeth

The runway is just above the trees at the bottom, and we took off West (to the left). That’s the Klamath River at the left edge, and the rock dike is the gray line just above the runway. Our hotel was near the right end of the town, and Tripp was parked in the small cleared rectangle of cut grass on the far side of the runway about in the middle. It doesn’t look like much from here, but climbing over the 30′ dike and back through brambles and barbed wire carrying some heavy stuff at midnight wasn’t easy. Was fun though. 🙂

3705 White Blanket

3705 White Blanket

I’d initially planned to fly out to the coast and along it like we’d done in Oregon the day before. That white blanket that greeted our takeoff is why I decided to climb near the airport instead. Once we were high enough to see that we didn’t need to leave the coast completely, we turned south and climbed gradually higher within gliding distance of the highway. I’ve already shared a pic of the North Pass Fire, but thought you might like the starkness of this one too.

3712 North Pass Fire

3712 North Pass Fire

It seemed to have skritchy hair on the right, but maybe that’s because of the sleep we had. 🙂

I’ll close this AB Joy recap with a pic from our luxurious stop in Sonoma. We enjoyed a delicious picnic in the park across the street from the Basque Cafe.

3741 Relaxation

3741 Relaxation

Next I’ll start to bring you up to date on some flights we’ve enjoyed since our return. After that maybe I’ll share that we’re contemplating a new Big Adventure to the East Coast. If we decide to spend another big chunk of our savings… 🙂

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