John & Anne Wiley

2012/10/09

Big Little

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships — John @ 09:16

As a kid, I enjoyed pretending I was flying on my bike. The weeds in a vacant lot were trees, and I’d “land” in a clearing to explore a world where ants are the size of dachshunds. Sometimes lying in bed staring at the ceiling, by restricting my view I could make it infinitely far away and then right in front of my nose. Could this be part of why I enjoy flying?

0472 Miniature Diorama

0472 Miniature Diorama

Is this a finely detailed miniature, or the end of Lake Cachuma where the river spills in? I see the big picture, and enjoy the abundant panoramic vistas of Santa Barbara County. At the same time, I notice little details like this thick wavy green “fur” at the feet of shadow-etched branches of oaks.

0476 Green Fur

0476 Green Fur

A lone fallen tree on an overgrown hillside jumps out at me with one story after another on how it fell, and the spiraling impression of the clearing it has magically created.

0478 Spiral Bones

0478 Spiral Bones

As I once found cartoon characters in that childhood textured ceiling, I watch the whimsical fleeting shapes of clouds.

0481 Bushy Cloud Brows

0481 Bushy Cloud Brows

Moments later I see a leaping pod of cloud dolphins cavorting in the sky.

0483 Dolphin Cloud Trick

0483 Dolphin Cloud Trick

On a ridge, the mysterious symbol created by a split road engages the creative and explanatory sides of my brain to whimsically play.

0485 Split Infinitive

0485 Split Infinitive

I love being on the ground, and engaging deeply in relationships. Yet many of my fav pix are of aerial perspectives. Maybe because compared with the relatively brief blissful moments of flying, friends and family (and often strangers) are much more fascinating, valuable, and transformative. So the aerial is more different and unusual, and provides a change of pace.

2012/10/08

Waves

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 08:51

Life breaks over us, and I like it when we can laugh. Sometimes I’ve wanted the waves of joy, grief, and challenge to stop. But of course, I love Life and so they continue to surprise me. In recent years I laugh more often. But nothing heavy about this post for me. Just more of the delights from our flight along the Five Cities coast, picking up where we left off with this one of my fav manse in Pismo.

0447 Pismo Manse

0447 Pismo Manse

I’d already posted a bigger and different view of this wonderful place on my Photo Page, and someone just sent me info about it that I’ve added in an update there. Nearby I was struck by how similar the offshore rocks are to the Oregon coast we recently enjoyed.

0450 Whitewash

0450 Whitewash

These wear a much thicker coating of accumulated white from years of happy birds though.

0451 Sea Caves

0451 Sea Caves

This stretch of coast also boasts many sea caves like the ones on the Oregon coast. Yet at the Pismo Pier the cliffs give way to broad beaches as the coastline angles South. It’s well worn by ATVs, RVs, and SUVs, yet still offers a great place for one horsepower riding.

 

0459 Beach Riders

0459 Beach Riders

In this last shot I’ll share from that flight you can see our beloved Oceano airport at the upper-right, the beginnings of the vast dunes at the right edge, and I like the hook of water where the estuary meets the sea.

0460 Oceano

0460 Oceano

Wonderful waves of relaxation wash over me looking at these pix. I hope they convey at least a little of that easy peace into your day too.

2012/10/07

Fly Di

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 04:27

Our friend Di loves to fly. So it’s always fun when we have her along. A few days after we got back from SJ & SF, the three of us were talking about how to celebrate our shared birth month. After listening patiently to the gals for a while, one of them asked my opinion. “We have an airplane,” I began. Somehow neither of them had thought of flying! Needless to say, that’s what we did. 🙂

0426 Avila Light

0426 Avila Light

I like lighthouses, so it’s fun trying to get a good snap of the light at Avila Beach and I like how this one came out. But I’ve jumped ahead some here. We flew first to the great little Oceano airport and walked to Old Juan’s for a late lunch.

0599 Kite Watching

0599 Kite Watching

After walking down to the beach and watching the kite surfers for a while, we bundled back into Tripp and I flew along the coast out to the light so the gals could enjoy the view. Of course, that meant I got to snap on the way back.

0427 Avila Bay

0427 Avila Bay

When we passed the end of the pier I snapped this of the attractive main tourist scene where Anne and I had strolled a few times. We discovered that right outside Oceano airport there’s a bus to Pismo and from there a trolley to Avila, so we’ll probably do it again sometime, but on this day we three just saw it from here.

0428 Avila Scene

0428 Avila Scene

Well, more accurately since we don’t have telephoto eyes, we saw it from here:

0429 Avila Pier

0429 Avila Pier

As you’re well aware, another of my fascinations is sea caves so here’s a view of some along the bluffs.

0432 Sea Caves

0432 Sea Caves

Here’s a wide shot for context. Looks like people park in the lot at the right and there are plenty of trails. I haven’t often seen kayaks here, but it looks like a great place to paddle on calm days like this.

0436 Cave Context

0436 Cave Context

Further along, in the Shell Beach and Pismo Beach parts of this coast are some great waterfront homes and a few mansions. I wonder if the boulders these people had piled on the beach have slowed the inevitable erosion of these cliffs.

0443 Boulder Barrier

0443 Boulder Barrier

I have more pix I like from this “birthday” flight, so I’ll share them in the next post.

 

2012/10/06

Textures of Time

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Inner World,Nature,Random — John @ 00:00

I lived in San Jose (well, the Campbell ‘burb really) during my high school years, so it’s a little magical seeing it from the air these many years later. As if there’s a special texture to the way it sprawls south from the Bay between two mountain ranges. The evening light of our flight back home to SB added a touch of melancholy to this enigmatic vacant section.

0367 Forgotten Dreams?

0367 Forgotten Dreams?

I was curious about this large vacant tract surrounded by houses, and the curved rows of trees. Seems to me it was once a golf course, and now just serves as pasture to a few happy cattle. Since it’s so near the Reid Hillview airport (just on the other side of Cunningham Lake) far across the valley from Campbell, I never saw it when living there. My love of all things aviation did draw me in my youth to the larger SJC airport, where I’d park beneath the approach end, to dream on the wide variety of landing planes. A few miles later I gazed

0368 Hills of Home

0368 Hills of Home

across the rolling brown hills and felt again the warmth of such scenes bring to my soul. For people of different regions, this velvety golden brown holds little appeal. To me, the open vistas and clusters of oak forest bring a contrast of colors and textures that nourish me with variety and perspective. A little later as shadows grew even longer we passed Pinnacles again.

0372 Pinnacle Panorama

0372 Pinnacle Panorama

This time there was far less smoke and we were lower with a slightly different track through the area. Each time we pass, different formations of stone textured by time leap out to the eye. Like the way this long furrowed ridge dances with the light. Nearby a cluster of outcrops with different weathered faces forms a varied family watching our passage in silent witness.

0377 Silent Witness

0377 Silent Witness

A neighboring low round pillar squats near this angular sharp ridge, as if waiting patiently there to remind us of all the eons invested in achieving the texture we so enjoyed approaching this particular sunset. Appreciating the bones of our planet, perhaps helps us awaken more fully to the memories that have carved our own souls.

0394 Time Tale

0394 Time Tale

2012/10/04

Cruzin’

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,Random — John @ 04:36

The day we flew to San Francisco, we flew first to the foothills above Santa Cruz and got this lovely view of fog nibbling at the shore.

0224 Cruz Fog

0224 Cruz Fog

Another thing we enjoyed from above, was a glimpse of what most of the rest of the family was doing on the ground. They went on a train ride in the mountains above Santa Cruz.

0219 Trains & Planes

0219 Trains & Planes

Looks like the mostly volunteer organization has done a lot to preserve and share the joys of trains. When we went back to San Jose for a change in passengers before the flight to San Francisco, this bubble building caught our attention.

0225 Housing Bubble?

0225 Housing Bubble?

I’m curious what this building is about, but haven’t yet looked up. It has some qualities of an observatory telescope, yet the angles we see inside make it look like some gigantic device. You’ve already seen some of the amazing views we got of the San Francisco area, so here’s a view of iconic Stanford University we enjoyed on the way back to SJ.

0349 Stanford

0349 Stanford

This campus I’ve explored several times over the years looks so different from the air. For example, I’d never seen that oval field at the left edge of the pic before. Last up is a view of SJC, the big airport serving San Jose, dominated by the big successful regional carrier. Before it got too expensive and we switched to homey Hillview airport we used to land here on our SJ trips, and it was fun landing alongside planes like these on SJC’s parallel runways.

0365 SJC

0365 SJC

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