John & Anne Wiley

When we’re little, parents hide stuff by putting it on the top shelf out of sight. Maybe the Boney Mtn. area is like that, being up where few people see it. Look how close the populous areas of southeast Ventura and southwest L.A. Counties are!

9578 Top Shelf

Millions of people drive past it on the 101 freeway and Highway 1 coastal route, but few have any notion of what’s up here. Of course, even when I knew my parents put something fun up on the top shelf it was usually impossible for me to actually reach it. Other than dedicated mountaineers and bushwhacking hikers, how many of us could reach spots like this?

9580 Beyond Reach?

Is another thing I love about flying the ability to at least find and get a closer look at such wild places? Even if I can’t touch the revealed delights, there is a feeling of connection from turning them in my mind’s eye feeling their textures and tasting their shapes. In those moments there are also sometimes deep Rememberings of childhood and my relationships with self, other and divine fleeting among the recollections triggered by looking at pix like these. Flight in small planes adds so many dimensions to life!

For many years the interface between computers and people has been very interesting to me. Even in today’s cutting edge technology it can often feel as if we’re pounding our “wetware” (brains) against an unyielding machine. Even if the machine can now be carried in our pocket.

Whether due to being a California native or due to another aspect of interface fascination, I’m drawn to the places where things and people meet. Like the base of Morro Rock, where the sea relentlessly carves out caves from the solid stone.

9189 Morro Rock Cave

Back toward the South, Montaña De Oro harbors an interface of grass and sand, air and water, waves and stone, in a symphony of Life. Every time I look at this next photo, my heart rate slows and breathing deepens. The quiet mood evoked by timeless beauty fills my soul with the misty distant throb of surf.

9223 Meeting Place

Families interfacing children and elders stroll and scramble these soft and hard shapes, and lone souls find solace. The abundance of life you can see thrives atop layers of unseen life slowly digesting the stone and absorbing the sand. I see parts of that story written in this slab of sandstone being pounded for millennia by earthquakes and peeled away by the prying waves of sea and life of all sizes and sorts.

9229 Tablet Computer

This stone tablet stores the tale and computes the story of this place, the perfect interface.

Flying home tonight from my Uncle’s memorial, I crossed the ridge solo as Anne drove our car home from Santa Ynez. My heart overflowing with painful childhood memories and the closeness of our family now, the sky wore a warm glow of sunset over moonrise. Many more pix to share, but I had to post this right away in case you haven’t been outside.

9527 Sun/Moon Dance

Approaching familiar SBA we imagined a dusk landing and a cozy dinner at home to bid farewell to 2011. Instead, this odd numbered year provided some last odd gifts. First was this sunset over the Channel Islands as we passed Ventura.

8940 '11 Hangover

The overhanging cloud was an odd color that gave me a brief sense of foreboding as if 2011 had a hangover. Do you see the freckled fog on the ocean in the above shot? Here’s another look, back toward Port Hueneme with better light because the camera’s not overloaded by the sunset rays.

8948 Oxnard Blanket

Well, that fog was thicker at SBA so ’11 gave us another odd surprise by preventing our landing. So we diverted to Santa Ynez where the quiet airport greeted us with clear skies dotted with the first stars of the year’s last night. A great friend drove over to bring us home, after we cruised the lights in festive Solvang. Tomorrow we’ll drive over to bring Tripp home once the fog burns off, and hopefully our friend will join me for the short flight while Anne brings the car back. I’m excited to see what ’12 looks like! So far it’s shaping up to be a Perfect Dozen year. May ’12 be your fave year so far, overflowing with welcome surprises and joyful closeness.