John & Anne Wiley

2013/03/20

Bending the Curves

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Islander Adventure,Nature,People,Random — John @ 07:13

Well, it took me a long time to take care of other stuff and then sort out the pix. We both shot a lot of pix at Big Bend, and the file numbers overlapped so I had to manually sort everything from two cellphones and three cameras. When I was a kid our family had one camera, and my sister hoarded it. Now most people have several, and photophiles like us have even more. Here’s why. 🙂

5216 LC View

5216 LC View

We woke to the majestic mountains of Las Cruces, thanks to Becky who gave us this view room at a bargain rate. We got a clearer look later, but farther away due to hustling to make up for time lost preparing charts at the airport preventing my intended detour for a closeup.

5219 LC Departure

5219 LC Departure

Fili, the wonderful man who drove us in the hotel shuttle back to Tripp said something he loves about living in Las Cruces is going to orchards in the green belt along the river on hot days. Here’s an overhead view I like of a home nestled among the bare trees.

5226 Green Belt

5226 Green Belt

Later at Big Bend, Anne told me to snap this landscape because it was on my side of the plane and she really likes the combination of colors and textures.

5300 Devil's Playground

5300 Devil’s Playground

Heavenly places like this get a bad rap in their Anglo names sometimes it seems to me. When there’s time I want to look up the native and Spanish names for this. When we took a very refreshing stretch break thanks to Marty, I learned something after she and Marcos graciously posed for this lively pic.

5315 M&M with A&T

5315 M&M with A&T

I love how M&M are both holding onto Tripp. They’re both excellent pilots and part of their excellent airplane collection is in the open hangar behind them. Well what I learned is that the spot Anne loved so much in the pic above, is the absolute fav of both M&M and several other local pilots. Wish we’d had time to descend and get a better look! But a sudden storm was brewing and we wanted to see more of Big Bend before dark. So glad we did!

5350 Into Mexico

5350 Into Mexico

Not long after leaving their private airport (3TE8) and warm Texas hospitality I got this view into Mexico with a shaft of light through the clouds gracing a river that joins the Rio Grande. By far my fav pic of the delightful day. Later as we neared Terrell Airport (6R6) for our turn direct to San Antonio, the sunset gave me one last memory of this amazing day.

5430 Farewell 3/19/13

5430 Farewell 3/19/13

2013/03/19

Forget and Change

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Islander Adventure,Nature,People,Random — John @ 04:43

We forgot how beautiful the desert around Tucson is. The rocks and plants have an austere magnificence.

5159 Rocks & Catcti

5159 Rocks & Cacti

Even tho we loved it back then, we’d forgotten how much we loved the Sonoran Desert Museum. But it’s so changed, too! Vastly bigger than what we remember, and many more people there. Our favorite attraction among many was the hummingbird exhibit.

5105 Hummer

5105 Hummer

Reminded me of visiting the San Diego Zoo, on a smaller scale. A similar sense that you were at a widely famous attraction. Maybe we have to forget in order to change, or even to perceive change. If our memories were completely lucid and fixed, seems to me that meaningful change would be very difficult.

When we visited Tucson years ago, it had a small town feel. Today it felt like a really sprawled city, with reminders of the past sprinkled around the edges and a thick layer of haze pulled over it.

5198 View From the Edge

5198 View From the Edge

2013/03/18

Memory

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Islander Adventure,Nature,People,Random,Relationships — John @ 14:03

Memory is strengthened by many things, such as positive emotions, but one of the best ways to remember something is for trauma to be associated with the experience. We’ll remember Tucson. 🙂

DSC_5044-b

We’re snug and warm with lattes inside that Starbucks on the left. We’re watching the sun rise over the mountains, filled with emotions, laughing frequently, and clearly remembering our experiences last night. Not long ago we were shivering in the cold desert air at the Catalina State Park. I figured out a way to partially inflate the air matt using the vent outlet in our rental car. Then I rolled the edges of one end to increase the pressure and tied it with some twine supplied with the sadistic tent. We finally got to sleep at about 1:30am, and woke on the ground in total darkness at 4:30 because an attractive someone (I won’t name names) had stepped on the partially inflated air matt and introduced a tiny puncture.

Now we are that couple laughing frequently in conversation breaks from gazing blankly with bloodshot eyes, at their internet devices. We first experienced Tucson together on our “honeymoon” Southwest driving tour across the Auto Club Indian Country Map in a 280Z sports car. We were younger then, had our camping gear figured out, and slept much better. But when we heard the coyote choir again last night during a break in the air matt quest, those warm memories washed over us with delight. Today we’ll visit sweet relatives, then take a magic carpet ride in Tripp to Las Cruces. Right now we’re about to head for the Sonoran Desert Museum we discovered on that first visit, to rekindle our love for that place in the joy of our marriage memories.

2013/03/16

Farewell Feelings

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Islander Adventure,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 05:45

We’re especially enjoying Our Town recently. As we get Tripp ready for our Islander Adventure, we’ve taken brief flights to check out little things we’re going to use for the journey. Mostly though it’s a sort of Farewell to Santa Barbara for a time. We’re really missing Home already, as our departure fast approaches. So for me this pic is a bit melancholy as we cherish this place and everyone here whom we love.

4988 Missing U

4988 Missing U

We’re already missing that sunset over the University, the skies and mountains, greens and browns, and all the fun things going on down there. Sweet young Sarah knew we were going on this short flight and to my surprise I could see her come out to wave, so far below.

4985 Farewell

4985 Farewell

The white picket fence between us frames for me a warm farewell, and the essence of leaving Home.

2013/03/12

Dreams & Schemes

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Islander Adventure,Nature,Random,SB Region — John @ 23:08

We’re ramping up. The dreams and schemes going into our Islander Adventure are pretty intense. So much to learn, plan, get, and do before we take off! Looking at this pic of Goleta Beach just now made me realize the Caribbean is going to look similar.

4742 Bahamaesque

4742 Bahamaesque

Both have beautiful beaches, ocean, boating, fishing, diving, swimming, and lots of blue. The sky here is often similar to pix I’ve seen of the Caribbean. But the ocean, not so much. Here it’s a deeper blue that’s more serene somehow, and there it’s brilliant and a lot warmer for water sports.

So today I’ve invested quite a bit of time figuring out the maximum distances we’ll be flying over water.

Water Crossings

Water Crossings

If you’re interested, you’ll probably need to click for the larger version to make any sense of this. In essence, it turns out the first water crossing from West Palm Beach to Grand Bahama Island (about half an hour) matches the one between Great Inagua and the little island just off Haiti.

Many (most?) pilots don’t worry about long water crossings, even in single-engine planes like Tripp. Lucky Lindy is oft quoted saying two engines just give you twice the chance of something going wrong. That’s fine, but more important to me are two things:

1)Engines have become vastly more reliable since Lindy’s adventure, and Tripp’s Lycoming 0360 is among the very best. Engine troubles of any sort on planes like Tripp are very rare. But the only sort of engine trouble I’d concerned about on a long water crossing is sudden and severe power loss, and that is much more rare still. Almost unheard of. Still, I do all possible to minimize that tiny chance.

2)I fly high. No, not in that sense, silly! Planes like Tripp glide quite well, serenely going about 1.5 miles per 1,000 feet of altitude. So unlike the innumerable pilots I see taking off from SBA toward Catalina past that scene of Goleta Beach (above) staying low as they head out over the water, I climb to always be within gliding range of land. Tripp is quite safe for going into water (for us that is – Tripp would probably eventually sink and become a fish refuge), so the concern is about being far from shore. Anyway, on those two long Caribbean crossings we’ll be beyond glide to shore for about six minutes. So even if the fickle finger of fate were to choose that moment to touch our trusty powerplant, we’d land near shore.

Now maybe you’ve never thought about this (or don’t want to!), but for me it’s a big part of contemplating a Big Adventure that includes big water crossings. If we do go beyond the Bahamas, it will be a small factor in our decision along with all the international ramifications of passing near Cuba and Haiti, possibly stopping in Dominican Republic, and visiting Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands.

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