John & Anne Wiley

2012/07/04

Terra Stories

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,Random,SB Region — John @ 07:11

Flying a quarter mile above terra firma, stories emerge from the landscape. There’s a different sort of intimacy with the earth than when we’re scuffing in the dust or splashing in the water. A little bit up in the air makes a big difference. You see vistas like this that would be a popular roadside view point or the reward for a strenuous hike.

0843 Lompoc Valley Vista

0843 Lompoc Valley Vista

Of course, they’re in every direction and moving in a slow dance with each turn revealing entirely new delights. Also plenty of interesting things like this you’d never see from the ground, even atop a high hill.

0845 Mystery Machines

0845 Mystery Machines

I puzzled over them for a moment, then snapped at full zoom to look at back on the ground. Cropping out just the machines it was easy to see they’re wind generators for frost prevention on crops sensitive to freezing. A couple of miles away just on the other side of Lompoc this entirely different vista soothes the aviator’s eye.

0846 Soft Shapes & Colors

0846 Soft Shapes & Colors

Beneath us I cropped a crazy corduroy of colors trembling in the gentle breeze we were riding.

0848 Story Lines

0848 Story Lines

With every color and undulation, our planet’s stories are expanded for the viewer on wings.

2012/07/03

Silent Song

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 21:13

Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head. That is, I can hear it or sing it repeatedly in total silence. A few times I’ve dreamed a song and once or twice rushed to play it on the piano or guitar and taken notes, to contemplate and explore further. But perhaps like many people, most of the time a song gets stuck after hearing it. Rarely, a completely silent trigger launches the inner tune. Here’s an example:

0796 Silent Trigger

0796 Silent Trigger

Looking thru pix this one caught my eye so I opened it to full 3696×2448 size. Then I inexplicably started silently “singing” in my head the age old words, “Be it ever so humble…” Do you hear the melody?

Now it may be far outdone by places like Malibu, Monaco or Manhattan, but SB isn’t exactly “humble” in most people’s minds. Our actual home here is, but more relevant to this post is our inner feelings about the town. We know many people here who have far more money than we’d want, and of course even more who lack even our modest means. So the song was probably more triggered by our feelings reflected in the rest of that verse, as evoked for me in this next pic I looked at.

0811 Home Port

0811 Home Port

The song of course is “Home Sweet Home” and the remaining lyric snippet in that first line is, “…there’s no place like home!”

‘Mid pleasures and Palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there
Which seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere.

Another line I’d forgotten hints at what lies beneath our species’ yearning for Home:

How sweet ’tis to sit ‘neath a fond father’s smile,
And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile!

We chanced to see an interesting interview of Spiderman director Marc Webb on Charlie Rose. Marc referenced the theory that human motivation arises from lack. How many people experienced a complete fulfillment of Home in childhood? So does some lack of that explain both our urge for travel to seek it, and also for getting back to a place where we’ve found some measure of such comfort and solace in the past?

We’ve roamed the skies of every North American state and province in Tripp, and explored some of Western Europe via other transportation. Yet each SB return has brought a warm glow in our hearts under the charming skies on the soothing shores nestled beneath the familiar mountains of our humble Home.

2012/07/02

Vertical Therapy

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 08:13

As I mentioned before, flying has a powerful soothing and healing effect for us. Any mood before takeoff magically transforms into a calm, happy, relaxed and generally blissed out state after we land. So we were scared a week ago. That’s when Tripp went in for her thorough annual checkup. It can be very expensive to ensure she remains safe and sound, especially when we add all the upgrades on our wish list. But the big scary issue is that it can keep us grounded for a long time while she’s all opened up. Last year: two months! So in the days before, we took several short flights to store up our bliss.

0898 Bliss Accumulation

0898 Bliss Accumulation

The pic above is UCSB’s Campus Point from our last flight before work started, using the excuse of warming up the engine for one of the tests. I mean, why sit on the tarmac with engine roaring and brakes set when you can be flying instead, right? Well, I’m very happy to report that Tripp sailed thru her checkup with flying colors and we took some short flights to celebrate. 🙂

0922 UCSB Greeting

0922 UCSB Greeting

As if to bracket our fear of grounding, UCSB both comforted our last takeoff before work started and our first takeoff after it was completed. So now we’re confident Tripp’s tip top for another year, and her excellent report card saved us enough money to fly more. Today we flew again, tomorrow looks good, we’re looking for a Tuesday excuse, and we might fly past the July 4th fireworks Wednesday. Lifting off today before we turned toward the East I snapped this familiar view of Goleta Beach, opposite the view of Campus Point a week ago.

1039 Tripp's New Year

1039 Tripp’s New Year

2012/06/27

Beached Whale

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 05:51

Often it’s an inexplicable impulse that moves me to snap an aerial. Something about this scene, for example, just nudged me to pick up the camera and tap the shutter.

0246 Beached Whale?

0246 Beached Whale?

Back at home looking at pix from the flight, the black thing in the middle looked at first like a beached baby whale. The guy walking toward it, maybe even the green thing some sort of attempted rescue floatation device? Then a deep breath and more careful examination reveals it’s a giant oil blob. An ancient seep from the riven sandstone strata just above the beach. But the fun I had discovering this feature on the popular More Mesa beach reinforces my tendency to go with the impulse to snap when it arises. Same with this one taken a moment earlier.

0245 Rock & Garden

0245 Rock & Garden

The shapes of rock and garden mingle to produce art. I like how the several yards also blend from above, into a complete picture that explodes beyond the square fence. Plus of course the turret on the right, because there’s something so romantic about turrets for me. This last one for today recalls the 1960s California surfing scene, but with an accent of Cannes, with the tidy identical beach umbrellas.

0250 Surfin' USA

0250 Surfin’ USA

It also recalls for me the 70th birthday party we had there on the Hope Ranch private beach for our dearly departed Doris. Seems only yesterday, yet it’s been fourteen years or so. She seemed so much older and wiser, yet soon enough we’ll reach that age. I guess as we age, ever more of our consciousness includes memory. Do the scenes that stand out to us, define our true selves? Am I in some way a beached whale? Are we the past we remember, the future we imagine, or our present consciousness and actions?

2012/06/23

Fun Weekend

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 04:01

Summer Solstice is our fav event in SB. I don’t know if it’s the same every year, but we heard this is also the weekend for the Lomoc Flower Festival. So we flew over for a look. Approaching town over the beautiful Santa Rosa Road we saw several fairly small plots of flowers along the river.

0501 Lompoc Flowers

0501 Lompoc Flowers

Very tame compared with bygone years, but still a lovely complement to the river flowing toward the sea. The festival itself, we discovered a few years ago, is really just kids carnival rides and a giant mercado.

0521 Flower Festival

0521 Flower Festival

No flowers to speak of, though we’d imagined many flower merchants and lots of contests for best posies. Nope. But not far away to the west of town is the loveliest field still blooming in this season.

0523 Lompoc Flowers

0523 Lompoc Flowers

After landing to explore the shopping malls near the airport, we flew home and saw the kickoff concerts for SB Solstice at Alameda Park.

0580 SB Solstice Concert

0580 SB Solstice Concert

Tomorrow our fun weekend expands into the fanciful Summer Solstice Parade, and we’re excited to take it all in! 🙂

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