John & Anne Wiley

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

2011/08/12

Castles Made of Sand

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 02:12

As you probably know by now, I’m fascinated by rock formations and by creative homes & gardens. Flying provides exceptional opportunities for discovering them, and this snap has all three attractions.

2949 Shell Castle

2949 Shell Castle

Shell Beach area has many fascinating rocks and sea caves, and this is perhaps my fav waterfont estate there. I wonder if that was ever an actual lighthouse, and whether the people living in the neighborhood ever go up there for the view. Looks like under the green roof at the top is a massive open air jaccuzzi, but it must be something else because it seems to be made of bricks.

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!

2011/08/09

Last Five

Filed under: Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 00:44

Today I’ll post the last five of my fav pix from Fiesta. Yesterday we enjoyed a Perfect Ten flight to Oceano, but I haven’t looked at those pix yet because today was meditation during a root canal. Though the procedure went fine, maybe it would have helped to meditate on yesterday’s flight or the colorful parade.

2761 Equestrian Bouquet

2761 Equestrian Bouquet

The dresses sometimes created an effect like slow moving floral arrangements. Some of the horses had amazing long wavy manes.

2778 Mane Event

2778 Mane Event

One of the groups in the parade represented the people who service our National Forest up in the mountains, both routinely and (to enthusiastic cheers when the sideline announcer mentioned it), during wildfires.

2786 Forest Servicers

2786 Forest Servicers

I was surprised how many mules were in the parade and, like the ones pulling the wagon below, they all seemed quite patient.

2792 Mule Wagon

2792 Mule Wagon

Maybe there are new good-tempered breeds or new tricks that belie the cliche, “stubborn as a mule?” As you can see at the bottom-right of that pic, an equestrian parade produces ample reason to watch your step. I was reminded of that as the end of the parade passed, and thousands of people surged into the street to walk up State Street.

2813 People Parade

2813 People Parade

Everyone was in high spirits, including the girl bottom-left who just walked through a memento. Guess these are all horse people.

2011/08/07

Equestria

Filed under: Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 08:58

We watched “Secretariat” before the parade, and it added to our enjoyment of all the equestrian variety in Friday’s parade. There was also some welcome diversity in the riders, and a variety of period costumes making it more interesting.

2722 Variety

2722 Variety

There was also a variety of wagons and carriages, plus I noticed a lot of mules like the one riding escort here.

2724 Mule Escort

2724 Mule Escort

Of course there were also a variety of musical offerings, including this marching band. I liked the expressions on the guy lofting a horn and especially the drummer behind him.

2739 Band Expressions

2739 Band Expressions

We were pretty far along the parade route, so they must have been hot and tired by the time we saw them. I was pleased to see that most everyone was still looking happy and enthusiastic by the time they reached us, and I wondered if this friendly group was in one of the stagecoaches that used to make the arduous climb from SB up to Cold Spring Tavern.

2747 Stagecoach

2747 Stagecoach

In addition to the equestrian magnificence, many women were wearing beautiful dresses of the period that I’m imaging were hand-made.

2756 Period Dresses

2756 Period Dresses

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