John & Anne Wiley

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.

Politics is amazing. Our work with the Citizens4sbcc group trying to save our Community College has been more intense lately. For one thing we’ve attended several events and fundraisers.

2846 Montecito Fundraiser

This fundraiser Anne is surveying as we arrived, was at a posh ocean view estate in Montecito. Beyond the pool is a lower level with magnificent rambling tea garden. Behind her is the sprawling mansion, and you can get a small glimpse from this later photo looking back up the yard.

2851 Uphill

The campaign has a decidedly uphill quality to it right now, as the incumbents go for broke. They’ve hired (with taxpayer funds) a campaign consultant, and are investing thousands in misleading ads and opinion pieces. The negativity of their approach is overwhelming! The thing I find particularly discouraging is their use of “doublespeak” (accusing our candidates of the despicable things their campaign is actually doing). I celebrate that they have their own opinions, but get upset when they espouse manufactured “facts” that are exactly opposite of reality. sigh…

Some of the events we’ve attended have helped refresh our hope and resolve, like this fundraiser (for a Parent Child Workshop, not our campaign). It’s a large group of parents and children working together on Parent Education, that was in one of the programs Anne supervised as SBCC Director/Dean.

2924 1/3 of a Fundraiser

Two thirds of the event is beyond this frame to the left and right. At the right is a live band, and to the left is the close-to-100 year old ranch with more action. It was so heartening to see the Carpinteria community pulling together working on the future of our world: raising conscious children. I hope when these kids grow up, the era of dirty campaigns has passed and we can focus on peaceful coexistence.

We went over Montecito couple of days later while taking a friend on his birthday flight, so I snapped this aerial view of the now quiet estate we visited in the first pix of this post. From above where political tactics don’t show as well, you can better see the beauty of our world.

2992 Montecito Estate