John & Anne Wiley

2012/06/21

Water

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 07:23

Water surrounds, sustains, and dwells within us. This is surely among the reasons we love to pause in contemplation at water’s edge. So when we flew out and back into our airport I noticed the traces of water between the airport and UCSB, and the ocean beyond.

0275 Water Traces

0275 Water Traces

At the shiny new airport terminal and on the vast concrete runways it’s easy to forget this is only fairly recently dry land. Whether the ponds are dry in Summer or awash much of the year, the traces are strong. Opposite the ocean is Lake Los Carneros. On the other side of the runway from the creek in the pic above, are these small seasonal ponds on the West end of More Mesa.

0274 Approach Ponds

0274 Approach Ponds

The vast majority of airliners landing at SBA zip right past this quiet scene, and you might glimpse it if sitting on the left side. More likely you’ll miss it, out-competed for your eyeballs by the ocean, islands, and all the transient human traces. But like the sea, these small bodies of water patiently await our return to origins.

2012/06/19

Grand Parks

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 21:47

We’ve been to some truly iconic Grand Parks at cities around the world. Among my faves are Central Park in NYC (in our aerials from this post), SF’s Golden Gate Park, Vancouver’s Stanley Park, Rome’s Borghese Gardens, and a growing list of others. But right here in Santa Barbara we have many good parks and a set of three that, in scale to city size, is a Grand Park.

0269 Grand Park

0269 Grand Park

You’ve seen many pix of this three-park complex here over the years, including this recent Alameda Park drive-by testing my new camera.

0017 Tree Song

0017 Tree Song

In less than a week, you’ll probably see some new Solstice pix we’ll take here. It will look quite different than the quiet time above as the parade aftermath fills it with colorful people, floats, costumes, arts, crafts, food and beverages. But a couple of days ago the southwest section of the park was the scene of this party with live music.

0270 Lively Park Party

0270 Lively Park Party

I guess what makes a park Grand for me isn’t just size. Add diversity, music, kids feeding ducks (in the ponds of the Alice Keck section), kids on playground equipment (in the Kid’s World section), a gazebo, open space, and natural beauty. Oh, and the fact that like many locals I visit there often ( and want to fly over). 🙂

2012/06/18

Unidentical Twins

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 08:28

Some twins look and act unrelated. The owners of these two large homes presumably have a lot in common. Similar incomes, same neighborhood, etc. Yet they are so drastically different.

0146 Unidentical Twins

0146 Unidentical Twins

I like the more compact layout of the top one (T), yet the bottom one (B) has an inner sanctum. B has a natural style pool, yet T’s pool is probably a bit bigger. T has a symmetry in the yard with fountain, yet B has a natural look and a cool detached cottage.

We have a lot in common with our neighbors and do spend some time with them, but we all like to imagine ourselves as very different. I wonder if these owners are friends who chat over the fence (or through the hedge), and hang out together a lot. Maybe not, but they probably do have enough in common to imagine them as fraternal twins from this distance. Separated at birth.

2012/06/17

Yarn Bomb

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 02:44

I’d never heard of it until seeing an Edhat item about a Yarn Bomb. Now I’ve added one in an Edhat item, there’s two pix of it on my Photo Page and here are two more smaller ones.

0257 Yarn Bombed Tree

0257 Yarn Bombed Tree

It was nice to see people there admiring it, though from the air I could barely tell one person was there. I wondered whether anyone on the ground would notice us passing 1/2 mile away, but from the pix it seems nobody did.

0262 Yarn Admirer Huddle

0262 Yarn Admirer Huddle

2012/06/13

Always New

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 05:49

We took a very dear 83 year young friend flying this evening before taking her to the Beachside near the airport for dinner. It involved some coaxing, but we got her to take the controls for a moment so we could snap her doing this new thing in her life. She found it comfortable, and did surprisingly well at quickly and intuitively getting the feel of a gentle turn.  No matter how often we fly it’s always new. Today not just from having our friend along, but the soft coastline where the clouds were dispersing in the warming afternoon breeze.

0150 Soft Coast

0150 Soft Coast

In our half hour jaunt we flew up to the ridge for a look at where Sunday’s “Circle” wild fire was. It was a little hard to spot, though the wide clearings along the ridge road seemed new. That area wasn’t black though, so maybe it did burn and they’ve just cleared it to the dirt ensuring it can’t rekindle a blaze and to provide a wide fire break. That’s Cachuma Lake at the upper left.

0152 Fire Clearing

0152 Fire Clearing

If you click to see the large version of 0152 above, you might make out the small area near the far end of the clearing that is black. As we flew past it heading for dinner, I snapped the closer view below. Looks like the reddish fire retardant dropped by an airplane (vertical line bottom-left) slowed the spread so that hand crews could contain the blaze at the blackened area. You’ll find other pix on the Edhat and Photo Page links in the right column here.

0157 Circle Fire End

0157 Circle Fire End

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