John & Anne Wiley

Child bullies used to issue that demand when they had a victim pinned, but sometimes the pain was easier to endure than the shame of the tearful word, “Uncle!” Smoke seemed to have us down on this flight, but every time we thought of that word it seemed better. Like this pic of Grants Pass along the Rogue River as we took off after a fun night stopover with a dear Uncle.

3063 Grants Pass

But looking along our route South the smoke was thick as ever.

3061 Smoke Signal

No, that’s not cloud on the horizon. There was a big fire off to the right, and as we climbed higher to scope out options we talked about trying the coast but decided to fly parallel to I-5 and stay high if needed. We stayed above it as Shasta bravely peeked out at us.

3077 Smoke Shrouded Shasta

It had finally thinned some by the time we got this look down at Lake Shasta, now with much more water than our last passage.

3160 Lake Shasta Fuller

We have more pix from this flight, but they’re so smoky as to be annoying for me. But we were spared a relatively boring flight home high above smoke by two of the many things we love about flying a small plane: flexible stops, and getting low. Yes, we decided to visit another Uncle and it yielded one of my fav pix from this day’s flying.

3209 Animal Island

I love the colors and textures of it, and how sometimes it transmorgrifies into tufted fur along the spine of a giant half-submerged animal. It’s in Clear Lake, but as you can see the water was somewhat less than clear that day.

3215 Clear Lake Wake

That dark vertical line next to another small islet in the lake, is the wake of a small boat that recently departed the dock. Minutes later on our descent we arrived at the iconic little airport, and perused the small aircraft “boneyard” as we wait for our Uncle to arrive for a brief visit.

3243 Aircraft Boneyard

After a refreshing lunch break chatting with him about old times and what’s new, we took off again for the short hop over to have a few minutes with our third Uncle of the day – in Marysville. More smoke of course, though thinner, but as we descended toward that airport this farm caught my fancy.

3304 Ancient Shapes

Small farms can evoke ancient times when our species settled down from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. Did a boy walk from Clear Lake to the Yuba River to visit an Uncle back then?

We did more than wonder about Whitefish. We decided to launch out of Cut Bank into the 40mph headwind toward the stormy looking Rockies for a closer look. As we got closer the wind lessened and it was clear we had three excellent choices: turn and ride the wind back to Cut Bank; weave through the wide valleys along a highway and turn back if we didn’t like how it looked at some point; or, climb over most of the clouds. After some dialog we chose curtain #3, because climbing gave us the most options. We could still descend through any of the countless holes in the clouds or turn back, but we could better see and avoid any of the few tall clouds with potential for rain below. Quickly the wind all but stopped and in mere minutes we neared the valley where KGPI awaits. With a clear path and few clouds ahead we descended between the scattered clouds into the more smoky and humidity-hazed air over Hungry Horse Reservoir.

2427 Hungry Horse

By this time we were hungry too. Not just for a gourmet dinner and colorful nightlife, but also for the welcoming cool and green we were nestling down into.

2434 Green

Even with logged, burned and dead patches of forest, this was a refreshing change from the prairie. Ahead we could see Flathead Lake and several towns just beyond the last peaks below us.

2436 Flathead Lake

One last alpine lake (Strawberry I think) slipped close beneath our wings in the still air, evoking memories of the arduous hikes and rustic camping of youth.

2453 Strawberry Lake

Now all that remained was to follow the river toward KGPI and enjoy the sunset scenery.

2471 Flathead River Eve

That night we wandered the streets of Whitefish and caught a great dinner, completing an especially glorious day that began with family and ended with a toast to precious memories.

Tupelo Grille Toast