John & Anne Wiley

2011/08/18

Sawtooth Sunrise

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,Random,Smiley Adventure,Tripp — John @ 13:50

We woke early to watch the sunrise lighting the Sawtooth Mountains, and now I’m standing outside the lodge using their wifi and waiting for their 8am opening for some coffee to offset the 32F air out here. Meanwhile, here’s what I put together last night after discovering they have wireless.

We scored a cool teepee at the lodge across the little highway from the grass air strip. Their wifi means if we have any time off from hiking, flying, driving and all things camping… I’ll be able to sort and share some pix. This is such a great place for my first “soft field” landing!

0612 First Grass

0612 First Grass

Our dear Julie snapped this as we landed, and it was so wonderful to spot her standing there waiting for our arrival!

We flew near Crater Lake on the way here from Ashland,

3761 Crater Lake

3761 Crater Lake

passed the Three Sisters peaks approaching Bend,

3807 Three Sisters

3807 Three Sisters

saw miles of vicious rapids even closer to Bend,

3823 Kayak Challenge

3823 Kayak Challenge

(lots of kayaks, but we didn’t see any actually in the white water), and flew past Stanley along the Sawtooth Mountains that were clearly well-named.

3889 Sawtooth Sliver

3889 Sawtooth Sliver

The range is of course many miles long and this pic is just a small slice near Stanley, but it gives you an idea of how jagged the peaks are. The many alpine lakes are stunning, but smoke from fires near Boise added to the natural haze backlit by the lowering sun so I’ll just have to fly them again to try for some better pix. 🙂

2011/08/17

Amazing Day

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,Random,Smiley Adventure — John @ 06:20

Quick post tonite because we’ve been up late talking with our friend in Ashland. Just had to post even tho there’s no wifi here (using my Droid cellphone instead), because today was so breathtaking. Here are a few snaps of the unbelievable routing we got past San Francisco, and of the Mt. Shasta summit we flew close to because winds were light. Needless to say, we have many more great pix from today to share with you later. 🙂

3301 San Francisco!

3301 San Francisco!

Now that we’re home from the Smiley Adventure, I’m updating some posts to make corrections and as you can see in this one: post better versions of the pix!

3323 Coit Up Close

3323 Coit Up Close

3610 Shasta Summit

3610 Shasta Summit

2011/08/16

First Leg

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,Random,SB Region,Smiley Adventure,Tripp — John @ 07:15

Today we left later than hoped, because Tripp needed some TLC. We’d had her nose strut rebuilt a couple of weeks ago, so of course today it was flat when we arrived at the airport to get an early afternoon start on our first leg of the trip up the coast. So by the time we’d had it fixed, we raced sunset and arrived just as the colors were fading and the lights started to twinkle. Oceano looked so wrinkly in the evening light, as shadows began to advance across the dunes.

3038 High Over Oceano

3038 High Over Oceano

We were flying higher and faster than usual to arrive before dark, and get a better look at Big Sur on the way. Morro Bay was lovely with a scatter of soft clouds mingling with the “sister” rocks toward SLO in the distance.

3053 Morro & Sisters

3053 Morro & Sisters

We got a good look at Hearst Castle, though the sun was too low to light up the brilliant aqua blue Grecian pool.

3084 Heast Castle Evening

3084 Heast Castle Evening

One of our fav stops when driving Big Sur is the Julia Pfeiffer Burns park, where you can walk under the highway for a great view of surf surging through sea caves and the long waterfall onto the deserted beach.

3138 Julia Pfeiffer Burns

3138 Julia Pfeiffer Burns

As we passed Nepenthe low clouds were gathering closer to shore and the light was fading, so we climbed direct to San Jose and got this shot of Monterey being overtaken by the fluffy blanket.

3153 Monterey Blanket

3153 Monterey Blanket

Nearby the coast from Pajaro Dunes to Santa Cruz was still clear just as the sun slid into the muck offshore.

3156 Santa Cruz Sunset

3156 Santa Cruz Sunset

We arrived in San Jose just at the right time to have good visibility, but late enough for the flavor of night flight that we so enjoy.

3159 San Jose Twilight

3159 San Jose Twilight

I hope the weather permits more coastal flying tomorrow as we continue North!

2011/08/14

Shell Memories

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 01:05

One of my warm childhood memories is the moment during long family drives from the Bay Area to SoCA, when we came through the pass from SLO to catch first glimpse of Shell Beach. The dull brown interior hills and hot valleys suddenly gained a brilliant blue and green top as the breezy Pacific came into view.

2954 Memory Beach

2954 Memory Beach

So when we flew past these hotels near that spot, those memories mingled with new ones from our anniversary stay in one of the hotels. The rock spire between lanes on the freeway (top of pic) looked so much bigger as a kid than looking down on it now, and the brilliant white bluffs tell of ancient marine life. Along with some wide sandy beaches the whole shoreline is riddled with sea caves like these, and the nearby residential area has several places where you can climb down bluffs to explore.

2947 Secret Shore

2947 Secret Shore

Added to my memories of Shell Beach now, are more recent ones in the adjoining towns of Pismo, Grover, Arroyo “Dinky” and of course our new fav Oceano. As you can see in this next pic, there’s a nice park at the lagoon next to the airport.

2959 Oceano Airport

2959 Oceano Airport

A block or two beyond the bottom of the pic is the beach, and just off to the right is the beginning of the vast dunes. It’s such a delight to fly around this beautiful area, land there and stroll to one of the cafes or Mama’s Italian restaurant, wander the dunes, wade the beach, and explore at whim until we find ourselves back at the airport. There we might chat with the owner of that yellow biplane parked next to the white hangar in the middle of the pic (click to see it on the full-size pic). Maybe meet other people who’ve flown in, talk to those waiting for a skydiving jump, or the ultralight flyers who sometimes fly there. Then we take off and often fly around the area again before heading past this lagoon along the beach to look at the crowds enjoying the all terrain vehicle area of the dunes, and the large nature preserve in the dunes beyond.

2962 Dune Lagoon

2962 Dune Lagoon

2011/08/10

Why We Fly

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 21:53

Flying to Oceano is a good example of why we fly. For about the cost of driving all day in mind-numbing freeway traffic to reach this beach, we did it all in a couple of glorious hours. The journey itself was refreshing, breathtaking… and far beyond what words (or photos) can convey are the array of much more powerful pleasant experiences during the flight. Even our precious memories of flights are vastly short of what it is to be there. Pick your fav photo from all our aerials, then remember it’s a tiny slice of what we saw at that moment and only captures a dim expression of what that little part really looks like. So after enjoying perhaps an hour of such scenes, here’s a slice of the dunes as we approached to land.

2893 Moment In Time

2893 Moment In Time

The shifting dunes of our perception take in the overwhelming beauty in ripples like these.

sigh…

So after dabbling in the surf we strolled the dunes. I picked up a plastic bag that had lodged in the grasses, and we started pausing to pick up trash. Felt good to honor one of our fav places by making it more pristine for others and perhaps sparing wildlife from harm.

2909 Color Me Happy

2909 Color Me Happy

It’s so sweet to share the glory of life, and the values that led us to clean up the swath of dunes along our stroll together. Back at the airport we saw a Piper Pacer taking off, and I mused about having considered buying one of those instead of Tripp. While it’s a cute plane, I’m very happy with our choice.

2916 Piper Pacer

2916 Piper Pacer

The paint is such a dark red that I had to overexpose the photo so it’s not mostly silhouette. Back in the air ourselves, we flew over Avila Beach before turning toward home. Avila looked so beautiful that even this photo that as usual doesn’t really convey the vista, still evoked in me the title of this post.

2929 Why We Fly

2929 Why We Fly

Imagine living in a time and place that permits ordinary people like us to share an experience like this!

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.