John & Anne Wiley

2011/08/16

First Leg

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,Random,SB Region,Smiley Adventure,Tripp — John @ 07:15

Today we left later than hoped, because Tripp needed some TLC. We’d had her nose strut rebuilt a couple of weeks ago, so of course today it was flat when we arrived at the airport to get an early afternoon start on our first leg of the trip up the coast. So by the time we’d had it fixed, we raced sunset and arrived just as the colors were fading and the lights started to twinkle. Oceano looked so wrinkly in the evening light, as shadows began to advance across the dunes.

3038 High Over Oceano

3038 High Over Oceano

We were flying higher and faster than usual to arrive before dark, and get a better look at Big Sur on the way. Morro Bay was lovely with a scatter of soft clouds mingling with the “sister” rocks toward SLO in the distance.

3053 Morro & Sisters

3053 Morro & Sisters

We got a good look at Hearst Castle, though the sun was too low to light up the brilliant aqua blue Grecian pool.

3084 Heast Castle Evening

3084 Heast Castle Evening

One of our fav stops when driving Big Sur is the Julia Pfeiffer Burns park, where you can walk under the highway for a great view of surf surging through sea caves and the long waterfall onto the deserted beach.

3138 Julia Pfeiffer Burns

3138 Julia Pfeiffer Burns

As we passed Nepenthe low clouds were gathering closer to shore and the light was fading, so we climbed direct to San Jose and got this shot of Monterey being overtaken by the fluffy blanket.

3153 Monterey Blanket

3153 Monterey Blanket

Nearby the coast from Pajaro Dunes to Santa Cruz was still clear just as the sun slid into the muck offshore.

3156 Santa Cruz Sunset

3156 Santa Cruz Sunset

We arrived in San Jose just at the right time to have good visibility, but late enough for the flavor of night flight that we so enjoy.

3159 San Jose Twilight

3159 San Jose Twilight

I hope the weather permits more coastal flying tomorrow as we continue North!

2011/08/06

Viva!

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 03:34

We took a break from helping at a shop working on Tripp, and drove downtown for the Fiesta Parade. We took quite a few pix, but here are two favs.

2736 Colorful Fiesta

2736 Colorful Fiesta

The costumes and decorated horses make it so colorful, and everyone’s having such a great time.

2742 Rope Trick

2742 Rope Trick

Many of the riders put on a show, prancing their horses, having them show off tricks like walking sideways or backward, and several like this guy did rope tricks. One of them even threw a lasso around a photographer standing in the street. After the parade we walked over a mile back to the car to finish up Tripp. Then of course we had to take her on a test flight, so we went over the city and saw big crowds everywhere and several more colorful events. Downtown there’s a mercado.

2849 Mercado

2849 Mercado

Maybe you’ll notice the vertical row of blue umbrellas near the center-top as I did, and want to check out whether that’s seating for a restaurant. Across the street in the downtown outdoor walking mall there was a dancing performance in the courtyard.

2850 Dancers

2850 Dancers

So we’re happy and tired. Part of my happy is that a few minor problems with Tripp are now fixed, thanks to a new mechanic who had more time available to tweak her than our regular mechanic who’s swamped with work. Now we need to dream up somewhere to fly this weekend…

2011/05/31

No Place Like

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,MeriTimes Adventure,Nature,People,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 07:13

Home.

Be it ever so humble, there’s nothing quite like the place where all your Stuff is. Everything you’ve collected in a lifetime of moving from place to place, photos of friends and family along with other treasures large and small. Seems to me that Oscar our trusty German washing machine smiled as we came in with weeks of grime he can work on. But the really sweet part begins when we reconnect with all our loved ones here. Meanwhile, here are some pix from today’s flight from Santa Fe to our own Santa (Barbara). Taking off the air was clear and calm.

1009 Wild Ride

1009 Wild Ride

Somewhere else, that is. Santa Fe treated us to wild gusting winds, blowing dust, and once we got off the runway a bumpy ride into a strong headwind. Luckily it was beautiful, and we flew over the “Hamus” as people correctly pronounce Jemez where the austere beauty of this area abounds. Our first “destination” though was Chaco Canyon, where enigmatic ancient buildings indicate a detailed understanding of astronomy.

1138 Chaco Canyon

1138 Chaco Canyon

We saw smaller sites too, including one many miles away to the West. The area around Window Rock also looks really cool from the air, with gently curved multi-colored sandstone shapes arrayed for miles.

1214 Huddle of Sandstone

1214 Huddle of Sandstone

Continuing to the West we passed many distinctive geological features, and this is one of my favs.

1264 Sibling Stone Pillars

1264 Sibling Stone Pillars

Standing apart from a “family” of stones shaped by time and elements, this formation is sort of a miniature Monument Valley. The pillars even have a “head” atop a “neck.” Not far away (by plane) is a vast expanse of features like this, with an etched layer atop a detailed cliff edge with sand piled up against tall cliffs.

1271 Layered Cliffs & Sand

1271 Layered Cliffs & Sand

We took a break about halfway home, at Clark Airport in Williams, AZ. Although the attractive terminal building was open, everyone seemed to be away at a holiday event so we fed Tripp some self-serve fuel and continued on after enjoying the collection of gliders apparently contributed by children who love airplanes.

1297 Planes Inside & Out

1297 Planes Inside & Out

Soon after takeoff we were greeted by what we feared at first was the edge of a storm that hadn’t shown up on the aviation weather forecast.

1298 Phoenix Air

1298 Phoenix Air

It turned out to be the air of Phoenix, blown out to greet us. It thinned out after a hundred miles or so, and by the time we crossed the Colorado into California the view down was fairly clear as a boat made a question mark far beneath Tripp’s wheel.

1306 Air & Water

1306 Air & Water

We saw miles of tall dunes out in the desert, and tried to guess how high the tallest might be given that they were 10,000 feet below us.

1350 Lonely Dunes

1350 Lonely Dunes

We also wondered how many people visit them, given how far they are out into the desert. Approaching the Palmdale area are some quirky human developments like this little rectangular lake that someone enjoys zooming back and forth on in a little boat.

1376 Large Tub

1376 Large Tub

There are a few other buildings and developments sprawled nearby, and the whole thing sits in a wide desert valley giving the impression of a little bathtub dug in a large sandbox. This was less than an hour from the lush hills of Santa Barbara, and our souls began to really ache for home even as we continued to enjoy the arc of interests stretching out to every horizon around us. When we finally began the descent into Our Town, it had never looked more beautiful and welcoming.

1411 Sanctuary

1411 Sanctuary

We’ve now landed in every state of the Union and every Canadian Province. We’ve seen mountains, valleys, deserts, oceans, sun, storm and snow. We’ve flown to Newfoundland and back, but nothing can beat the sanctuary of Home.

2011/05/12

Safe Harbor

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,MeriTimes Adventure,Nature,Random,Tripp — John @ 02:31

Exciting flight today! A bit bumpy until we climbed above the broken clouds, and then a smooth and strong headwind that made for a more leisurely passage over the countless islands and inlets of the Maine coast.

9951 Maine Coast

9951 Maine Coast

The colors got shifted in the above pic, I guess due to all the cloud shadows confusing the camera’s auto white balance, but you still get the idea. Love how the one islet bottom-center is in the sun.

We passed near Bar Harbor, where we enjoyed Fall of ’09 with colorful leaves and exceptional lobster bisque at Maggie’s. Today we just flew by and saw new views from different angles and higher altitude.

0027 Bar Harbor

0027 Bar Harbor

On to Eastport at the Canadian border to get a nice meal for Tripp. This was probably the most exciting landing I’ve ever done, with gusting crosswinds right at the edge of Tripp’s rating and flocks of birds enjoying the fact that nobody else was flying. In fact, we saw people walking dogs along the runway while we were fueling.

0056 Eastport, ME

0056 Eastport, ME

We did a low pass first to gauge the winds down among the trees and it was fine, but we needed to scare off the gulls before landing so I went around again. Notice the burned out buildings on the small point of land about in the middle of the pic. Below is a closeup.

0058 Eastport Ruins

0058 Eastport Ruins

I wonder what this was, and how it came to be a burned out shell. Anyway, after Tripp had all the cheap fuel she wanted we took off much more easily than we landed and made the short hop to St. Stephens, NB. Oh, Canada! We have now begun the Maritimes part of our MeriTimes adventure! Tomorrow if weather permits we might get to PEI or Nova Scotia. Fun to not know yet what the wild Spring has in store for us. Tonight we’re glad to be snug with Tripp securely tied in the wind with the new heavy nylon ropes we bought her in Quincy, MA (and carried them all that day). She looked especially happy in her safe harbor between two hangars, all tied and chocked with her cover on. We’re excited, and happy tired. 🙂

2011/05/11

Fear

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Inner World,MeriTimes Adventure,Random,Relationships,Tripp — John @ 16:24

I have a little time this morning as we wait for improving weather, we’ve had a minor reassessment this morning, and I got a slightly concerned inquiry. So I’m going to share a little about Fear in case anyone’s interested. If you’re prone to worry or want stuff about adventure and fun, please feel free to skip this post in case it might just distract you from enjoying the normal stream of this blog.

If you’re still reading, I appreciate any concern you may have about our safety because one of the greatest sources of delight for Anne and me is to be cared about. If after reading this you have questions, please email us and share (though it might be a while before we have time to respond).

The reassessment had to do with what we want from this most difficult part of our planned flying adventure: the Canadian Maritime Provinces. It’s difficult because we have to hassle with more expensive and less functional cellphone and internet connections, airports, fuel, and possibly food and accommodations (being colder than here, camping is a less attractive option too). It’s also potentially more dangerous, due to being less populated, some relatively long flights over very cold water, and less favorable weather.

So the fears we talked about this morning are about spending more money per day, possibly waiting for days on the ground hoping weather will clear when it might not, and what are the risks. I tend to look first at the worst case, and work my way back from there. Having read a lot about what we’re about to do, my opinion is that the worst would be a forced landing into trees so I’ve investigated how likely that is and considered means of mitigating the risk.

The chances of a sudden mechanical problem that would leave no option other than landing in trees is quite small. The number of aircraft like ours that have this happen is significantly less than the number of serious car accidents per mile of travel, so the risk is quite small. Among other things, we’ve had Tripp carefully checked before starting this adventure and she’s actually in considerably better shape than when we bought her (partly because we’ve fixed everything and partly because we’re flying so much, and that’s good for her engine). I’ve worked alongside several highly-skilled and experienced aircraft mechanics, and assured myself of her good health while also learning what to watch for so as to avoid problems in flight.

Another safety measure we use when flying in less populated areas with lots of trees or other unfavorable terrain for forced landing, is following major roads. Since we can glide 1.5 miles for every 1,000 feet above ground, following roads doesn’t add much to the time and distance of our flights but it does add options. Obviously we can land on the road itself since traffic is light, but there also tend to be more people around which means help fixing whatever the problem might be and more open fields, etc. to land in.

Flying over water, we climb high enough to glide over land in event of problems. Our longest water crossing on this flight is less than 1/2 hour, our engine is rated for at least 2,000 hours of highly reliable operation, and this adventure will probably tally up to 100 hours or less.

I recall a line in the book Dune something like, “Fear is the mind killer.” How I like to greet fear is by allowing the feeling, which tends to pass in a few seconds. Then, rather than dwell on it and feed it, as mentioned above I go to the worst case and engage my mind in exploring the actual risks.

I hope some of this might have been interesting, informative, or helpful in some way.

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