John & Anne Wiley

2012/10/20

Everywhere

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 20:32

I love flying, especially here in the SB region, which begs the question: where have we flown that I have not enjoyed. After a moment the one place I think of, is out of El Paso headed home from a Big Adventure. I thought 500′ would make it more interesting, but it wasn’t. After a few miles I climbed to 4,000′ or so and then it was fun again. Just as I love flying Everywhere, here in SB it’s fun looking Everywhere.

1083 Hope to Hills

1083 Hope to Hills

No matter which SBA runway we lift off from, or which way we turn, SB is a wonderland of magnificent vistas like this. Often while flying along the coast from runway 15 when ATC will grant us a “left crosswind departure” toward the harbor, I’m looking mostly at the mansions. Some of the most beautiful estates in North America are on the bluffs of Hope Ranch overlooking the Channel out to the islands and beyond. But glancing up on this flight, I enjoyed the line up past Laguna Blanca to the base of the hills where we live and up to the mountains. Maybe because of so many warm memories there, the attractions around Hendry’s Beach (Arroyo Burro) often catches my attention.

1084 Hendry's

1084 Hendry’s

I didn’t notice it during the flight, but on this pic I got curious about writing in the sand at the right edge. Flipped over and cropped from the original, here’s a better look.

1084 Wilcox Wife

1084 Wilcox Wife

Apparently, some enterprising suitor prepared this message in the sand and then proposed from the trail up on the Wilcox (Douglas) preserve. I wonder if the pranksters who changed the “RR” to “BB” had done so before the proposal. I guess we can assume her answer was “Yes” and that she’s soon to be a Wilcox Wife, joining the women before her proposed to or wed there. In this last pic for this post, is another popular proposal and wedding spot.

1085 Shoreline

1085 Shoreline

I know this, because we celebrated our impromptu marriage with a re-enactment for family and friends at Shoreline Park. It’s the sliver of waterfront grass with walking paths and trees right on the bluffs overlooking the water.

Everything about flying is evocative for me. The flying itself resonates with countless dreams, watching birds, and my lifelong fascination with aircraft. The new places I see from the air resonates with my delight in discovery and my enjoyment of views from high places. The familiar places we fly over resonate with memories. Yesterday we were talking about our good fortune in finding a partner who shares our love of flight. In a sense, for us flying is Everything.

2012/10/15

Generations

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 07:44

We took our sweet and serene Sarah on a short flight in the clear air today, and it began a memorable time together. She’s a recent UCSB grad, so we got permission from ATC for a flight past her old haunts starting with this look East from Devereaux.

1072 To UCSB & Beyond

1072 To UCSB & Beyond

Like her we have many fond memories of that campus, going back years before she was there. We of course also feel fondly about the airport next door. 🙂 Passing the beach, this group of surfers in the clear shallow water (can you see the faint ripples?) took me back to my own youth.

1075 Surfers In Shallows

1075 Surfers In Shallows

When we reached this scene, the contemplative look on Sarah’s face was wonderful to behold.

1079 Looking Back at UCSB

1079 Looking Back at UCSB

After the flight we had dinner together at our place and watched “My Afternoons With Margueritte.” It fit so poignantly with our day, and the love we have experienced with family and friends lately. After the movie we spoke briefly of “Us-ness.” That field of mutuality we experience with kindred souls, that’s not about “me” or “you.” A warm glow of togetherness that transcends personality. It somehow triggered these words in me, as I realized that such moments have always carried forward across the millennia.

May the magic of our Us-ness
Linger in our hearts silent spaces.
May we ever remember
To pass their essence
Onward down the generations.

2012/10/13

Down to Earth

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 03:14

This post is a miscellany of pix bringing us up through 9/26 that has a down to earth feel for me, even though it includes flying and even this item from outer space.

0936 3 Jets, 1 Spaceship

0936 3 Jets, 1 Spaceship

This was on 9/21, the last day of the Shuttle’s CA tour that ended in LA. I’d been trying to find out where it was online, and finally got an update when it flew over VAFB near Lompoc. So I grabbed the camera and went outside to watch it pass offshore. When a small plane passed over heading for SBA to land, I glanced up when the engine revved and saw that the plane was doing an unusual maneuver as if the pilot were straining to look above and to his right. I looked in that direction and much to my surprise, there they were. Normally I’d have fixated on the fighter jet escort, but this combination of the ungainly 747 and shuttle on top was completely irresistible.

0938 Big Bird

0938 Big Bird

A few seconds later I snapped this just after it passed almost directly overhead. It was of course much higher than it looks in this cropped zoom shot, but you could actually make out some detail on the underside of the shuttle wing with the naked eye.

0939 Shuttle Detail

0939 Shuttle Detail

In contrast with the gray in these shuttle pix, we enjoyed a colorful visit from a young friend and her young son. Among the delights was when we took them for a swim.

1000 Student Swimmer

1000 Student Swimmer

Then we took them flying, of course. 🙂

1024 Local Icons

1024 Local Icons

I didn’t take aerial pix of anything but these two local icons. At the bottom is the Santa Barbara County Bowl, where there’s been a recent major construction project I wanted to check out by studying this pic later. The big white building at the top used to be the famous Brooks photography school, where we occasionally toured the ever-changing photographic art on the walls. Last up is this odd pic of our beloved Hass avocado tree.

1033 Mitey Conflict

1033 Mitey Conflict

We’re hoping it’s the scene of a “mitey” conflict. See, the envelope rudely stapled to a leaf contains “predator” mites that will hopefully dine on the parasitic mites that have been munching the leaves. An expert from the Bartlett Tree service said our tree’s fine. We’d called him, worried about the mangy look of the leaves but he assured us it’s doing well. He said if we wanted to help it do even better, we could order a spice shaker with a thousand predator mites. The little plastic jar came UPS wrapped in cold packs in a scary looking “live animals” box, and we had lots of fun dispersing them on the tree in the seven provided envelopes. Since they’re nearly invisible, and we only managed to spot two of them on the tree the next day, maybe the whole exercise is more of a Feel Good strategy. Like when a teen boy buys shiny hubcaps for his first car, even though it’s nearly ready for retirement. 🙂

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.

2012/10/02

Relativity

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 07:42

Way way back when I was getting my pilots license, seven years ago, flying to an airport more than 50 miles was a Big Adventure. Sure seems like thirty years ago! Now that I’ve landed in every U.S. state and Canadian province, anything less than 300 miles is a relaxing day trip. Such was the case flying from SB to San Jose to visit relatives not long after we’d just flown past it coming home from the AB Joy adventure. The first pic I like from that flight is this hippie house on a hill.

3797 Round House

3797 Round House

OK, you’re right – it’s not a hippie house, or in fact a house of any kind. It is indeed a water tank. But for some reason I’ve always thought it would be cool to live in an old wooden water tower, and put a sun deck on the roof. Anyway I like how the tank, white aerial survey X, and the grass trim shape all interact visually. Next up is a velvety texture.

3817 Velvet Ground

3817 Velvet Ground

I like how the undulations show up, and how they mix with the adjoining vineyard geometry. But I also get a sense of stressed land that’s saturated with salt or something that’s making those whitish areas. This was actually a pretty smokey flight, due to all the fires back then (8/31), so most of the pix didn’t turn out well. Like this muted one of the visually striking Pinnacles.

3834 Hazy Pinnacles

3834 Hazy Pinnacles

Descending into San Jose along the 101 I enjoyed the interplay of wind, water and trees at the small reservoir(s) between 101 and the old Monterey Highway.

3843 Reflections

3843 Reflections

I reflected for a moment on the many times I’d been along one of those roads, and the relatives living and gone who lived nearby. Also the new relative whose birthday we gathered to celebrate. So many changes and milestones between birth and death, yet perhaps relatively few.

0138 Relativity

0138 Relativity

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