Sometimes our Santa Barbara sky puts on a panoramic show for sunrise or sunset, and tonight it was followed by the launch of a rocket from Vandenberg that I just happened to notice while opening a window for air.
3281 Sunset North Sky
3283 Sunset West Rays
3288 Sunset South Sky
3299 Rocket Launch - series
Do you remember a time when the Democratic party “controlled” both houses of Congress? Back in that era, do you recall we “brought you along” with pix of our flight from Santa Barbara to San Diego? Well today we watched a bunch of recorded TV from the election analysis and puttered around the house. I suddenly remembered that there were more pix from that flight you might enjoy. In the Laguna area is a beautiful beach at Crescent Bay and it was popular 10/10 with people on the sand, in the water, and climbing on the rocks.
2465 Crescent Bay
Laguna Canyon Beach was understandably busy too, with its lovely wandering waterfront walk and grassy area complementing the great beach.
2470 Laguna Canyon Beach
Just past the grand hotel at Laguna Niguel and Dana Point, the tall ships at Dana Cove offer a glimpse of the last millennium.
2500 Dana Pt. Tall Ships
Surfers were out in numbers past San Clemente at the Trestles Surfer Beach, where the sea bottom shape offers exceptional rides in some conditions. If you click to view the large size, you can make out rows of boards standing in the beach sand.
2516 Trestles Surfer Beach
To some the San Onofre nuclear facility is beautiful, to others frightening, and to many passing on the freeway perhaps just an architectural oddity. There’s something fascinating to me about its close proximity to Trestles on one side and the “Tijuana North” border patrol inspection point on the other.
2525 San Onofre Nukes
The hovercraft base at Camp Pendleton is mostly hidden from the freeway, but it would be fun to see the Marines launching down the ramp into the ocean during a flight like this sometime. Maybe even loading into their transport ships offshore.
2540 Camp Pendleton Hovercraft
Another landmark along the old Highway 1 at Carlsbad is the older alternative to those San Onofre nukes. I remember this power plant from my youth, and like me it’s still going strong.
2571 Carlsbad Power Plant
A highlight of every drive along Hwy. 1 and this flight offshore was seeing San Elijo, because this is where we had our “honeymoon.” We’d both left our jobs in the Pacific Northwest, we bought a 280Z sports car together, and tented on the bluffs above the beach at the left. During this break between careers we’d talk, walk, sing, swim, write, and muse. I remember riding the rip current to the left in shallow water along the beach just right of the lagoon outlet, as Anne kept pace at a brisk walk along the sand. It would take me out a bit near the outlet and then more slowly back along to the right to repeat the ride. Years later we took my daughter and her boyfriend there to play on that same beach one night in the bright lights of the restaurant. It seemed bigger then than it does from this vantage point, now that we’re in one of those small planes we used to watch flying along the shore.
2580 San Elijo Lagoon
Well this sure got long! Guess I’ll stop for now, and maybe look at the remaining pix from this flight sometime to see if there are more you might enjoy.
Our Q bird is a rare variety of Skyhawk, and after sunset she was a night hawk. Flying quietly and a bit higher than usual, we wandered the skies offshore in wordless wonder.
3150 Sunset Afterglow
Though it’s dark on the ground, aloft there’s still light and a colorful horizon like this one beyond UCSB. Over the harbor, the SBCC stadium is a pool of red and green at the right edge of this pic.
3163 Harbor Night
Any slight glow from the sky is mostly blocked by the Mesa, so the harbor found night first. A moment later we enjoyed a twinkling view past Stearn’s Wharf up State.
3164 Nightfall Up State
Dark as it seemed, there was still some great color in the skies out over the islands.
3179 Channel Island Twilight
We lazily cruised around looking at this and that, with a detour most of the way to Carp. Once it was fully dark we headed reluctantly home to SBA, passing over the harbor now looking quite different.
3264 Dark Harbor, Bright Stadium
Though it had been just over a month and thus not needed until Christmas, we decided to update my “night currency.” Most of the 4-some years I’ve had a license, I’ve maintained that by doing three landings to a full stop every three months. It’s always beautiful, and most often we do it on a full moon for extra light and beauty. Often we’re the only plane flying, except sometimes an airliner coming or going. Well tonight it was like a beehive! There were three and one time five other small planes, plus those occasional airlines all swarming around the airport. Another thing I like about night flight is how easily we can spot other planes, so it was an unusually fun time to be doing those “stop and go” landings (you land using the minimum amount of runway, stop, then take off again).
There seemed to be a new ATC trainee manning the tower, and one of the planes “in the pattern” wasn’t responding crisply, so one time I over-ruled the tower and circled to keep my distance from the hills he’d directed me toward. Pilots have the ultimate say when safety is an issue, and though it wasn’t ever dangerous my preference was to keep well away from the unlit hills rather than annoy anyone up there enjoying the quiet. Because the controller wouldn’t let us use the long runway, my last stop and go that went a bit long due to having circled left me with less than 2/3 of the runway for takeoff. I was glad to be in Tripp, because by the time we reached the end she’d already lifted us to a safe 500 feet and was climbing at 1,000 feet per minute. We had the propeller dynamically balanced today, so she flew even more sweetly and smoothly than usual. In all a delightful evening. Oh what a glorious way to invest $100!
Addendum by Anne: Once again, these photos give only a smattering idea of our experience flying above and around this beatific cityscape at twilight, with lights twinkling below and shimmering afar. These visions are coupled with the gentle floaty motion of the our steady steed, providing the dreamiest of feelings, splendid! I feel so incredibly grateful in this space and time, it is incomparable…
We enjoyed a varied walk in SB’s Oak Park this evening. First clambering along the creekbed, then across the grass where the trees framed a magnificent view of the mountains still in the sun.
3119 Mountain Light
Ever playful, Anne clambered inside a hollow tree to vamp for the camera.
3128 Tree Goddess
In the quiet shadows of Oak Park with sun still glinting on treetops beyond, we huddled at the footbridge to enjoy the old tree it frames so nicely.
3141 Bridge to Branch
Talking quietly, we recalled this same bridge on bright summer days flowing with people coming and going at one or another of the annual ethnic festivals. A whiff of fine cuisine wafting among the branches at the French Festival. Memories of paradise.
A year ago we were in New Orleans. Yes, for Halloween! Since that town knows how to party through grief (including the ghosts of Katrina) it was of course the experience of a lifetime as we shared in a post then. Here’s a snap of the scene.
9788 New Orleans in 2009
This year we’d thought about going to Isla Vista as we had in 2008, for another flamboyant if more mellow celebration. Instead though, we downshifted another gear to just cruise some neighborhoods and Altered State Street. On the way into town I snapped this black cat sitting between carved pumpkins, so motionless we wondered if it was part of the decorations. When these kids arrived, it instantly transformed from menacing to coy and everyone delighted in the interaction including the old couple watching from their car. For a moment, the kids completely forgot about candy.
3067 Black Cat
On the street downtown, small kids who’d been collecting candy from merchants had mostly gone home for dinner and the older revelers were coming out. We wondered about the story behind the nun’s adjusted habit, because she was quite proud of it and got the others to pause and pose.
3094 Nun & Friends
I’ve sent other pix to Edhat and will probably post at least one on my Photo Page, but here’s a last one from our drive home through another neighborhood. This whole area for several blocks was alive with families and groups of teens enjoying some elaborately decorated homes. You can’t tell at this size, but the car in the driveway is belching “smoke” and is filled with mangled “bodies.”
3105 Hood Decor
John & Anne Wiley 
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