John & Anne Wiley

2014/04/20

Room Contrast

Today we hooked up with Zubair & clan, and while they strolled Uppity Town (or some such prefix) Sedona, we did an aerial tour and saw remarkable things like this.

6262 Sedona Scenes

6262 Sedona Scenes

Few tourists ever see this. Even those who pay large sums for helicopter rides, and few pilots even seem to make the climb. Back on the ground, we drove together out to Red Rock Crossing and enjoyed these views.

6375 R R Crossing

6375 R R Crossing

A little further up river I snapped this zoom shot of the spires.

6380 Red Rock Spires

6380 Red Rock Spires

By the time we got back to the airport, we had to rush the short hop to Flagstaff so Zubair didn’t get his own aerial tour as planned. As we waited for them to take off I snapped this view showing how much hazier it had become. Also, that slack wind sock belies the gusty variable winds we encountered on takeoff.

6412 Lying Sock

6412 Lying Sock

I’ve found every landing at Sedona to be interesting, and frankly fun. Many pilots don’t share that enjoyment. 🙂

Tonight we catch up on sleep, and with this free wifi I’m able to post all these pix. Hope they give you a flavor of how much fun we’re having.

2014/04/19

Sedona Sunrise

Sunrise at the airport this morning was both memorable and “unphotographable.”

6096 SEZ Moon Sunrise

6096 SEZ Moon Sunrise

The airport code here is SEZ, and the moon over the buttes sez a lot. 🙂

Because we couldn’t get a campsite (Easter rush), we tried out my new configuration for sleeping in Tripp. Unlike the crazy hour of fitful sleep we had in Terrace on the NxNW adventure, this time we got about 5 hours. C-172 pilots, contact me if you’d like to know how we did it.

Today we join up with Zubair & family, and right now the plan is to first fly the area scouting out our fave spots. Then we’ll share a rental car to cruise the town and maybe drive out to one of the spots we liked best. Early evening we’ll get back in the planes and take one more short tour of this area, then fly in loose formation to Flagstaff for the night. Delights await…

2014/04/18

24 Hours

What a difference a day makes. Twenty four little hours. Right now we’re savoring scenes like this from our flights around town with the hills showing patches of color. We’re wondering, “Why leave?”

5951 Lush Lauro Reservoir

5951 Lush Lauro Reservoir

We’re flying into severe brown, and by the time we get back the colors will probably have drained away here too. The delicious air here caresses our faces, and out in the high desert we’ll be dessicated by blasts of dusty hot winds.

But 24 hours from now we still look forward to camping somewhere in Sedona to await the arrival of Zubair and clan. The fun of seeing our dear friends and exploring the Four Corners together by air still overwhelms any urge to stay here in Paradise.

2014/04/16

Plan?

Big News! 🙂

I’ll say it again, for us there are Five Trips in every Big Adventure. The trip you Dream, Plan, Take, Remember, and Dream. Yes, we Dream them twice, because the dreams before it happens are powerful yet distinct from the powerful dreams we have after every Big Adventure. So the news is, we’ve just advanced from Dream to Plan on a new Big Adventure: “4C.” That is, the Four Corners region of the great American Southwest. Maybe this will clarify for you:

4C 1st Plan: Avare

4C 1st Plan: Avare

Maybe not? Well, this is from a screen capture in the free Avare aviation app I helped develop with my good friend Zubair (more on that later). The little red “airplane” icon at bottom-left shows where we are in SB. The purple line from there is vaguely our route flying four hours or so to Sedona. There we might tent but however we sleep, the next day we’ll meet up with Zubair and his family of four who will have flown commercial from Boston and rented a plane in the Phoenix area. Then we’ll set off in loose formation to explore the Four Corners, vaguely on an initial route we dreamed something like this:

4C Trip Drive Map

4C Trip Drive Map

There was a line in Back To The Future something like, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!” Well, we’ll be fine with roads, but as you can imagine we’ll be going places roads don’t reach and seeing marvels invisible to all but those who fly as we do. We’ll probably enjoy about 2 hours a day or so of flying around, punctuated with some drives and hikes and maybe short boat trips. Even so, that dreamy magic carpet ride will probably be less than half of the 22 grueling hours gMaps estimated it would take to roughly drive that route with no detours. I love to fly! 🙂

So if you’d like to “fly along” with us, stay tuned to this blog for more on our Plan and our Trip as it unfolds. I’m hoping to have more ease with posting updates along the way, because this year Verizon has seen fit to allow us access to the cellphone data we’re paying for, on our laptops.

In case you’re wondering about that green line at the lower-right of the top pic, that’s where we’re heading after Zubair and family head back to Phoenix for their return jet to Boston. We’ll then carry on into Phase Two of 4C: our first adventure into the high Rockies and more detailed exploration of Colorado!

2014/04/11

Hazards

We flew Tripp to Santa Paula for an oil change and checkup, because we’re starting to plan yet another Big Adventure (more on that soon). Often when driving on the freeway we think about how dangerous it is. Less so than when I used to ride a motorcycle, and less even than undivided highways. We feel much safer in Tripp, but as with anything in life there are some hazards to be aware of. Today as we left, Anne worried about whether the wispy low clouds over the beach at Hope ranch might come ashore before we returned.

5431 Beautiful Hazard

5431 Beautiful Hazard

These similar wispies were near La Conchita, and to me they’re far more beautiful than hazardous because of course I fly well clear of them. Worst case if Anne’s fears had materialized, we’d have flown to Santa Ynez and hitched a ride home to wait for a clear day. We also saw evidence of another travel hazard on the beach nearby.

5439 Final Hazard?

5439 Final Hazard?

Will they be able to save it, or was this the final hazard for a dream boat? Presumably nobody was hurt, as is usually the case with all hazards. But every time we see a mishap of any sort, it’s an reminder to both take care and enjoy the moment.

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