John & Anne Wiley

2013/02/17

Change

It’s quiet. No musical little voice babbling as she toddles from this room to that, and from one set of loving arms to another. No conversation about what we’ll do tomorrow. Another change is that we flew after several days on the ground, taking off just before their plane. I heard their pilot talking to ATC as I snapped this view of their airliner climbing with the lush green hills behind them.

4462 Takeoff

4462 Takeoff

After watching Lulu blow us kisses as they walked thru the TSA checkpoint, being already at the airport we decided to take Tripp up for a few minutes to get some air in our hair. I flew the “pattern” around the airport once for a change so we could watch their plane taxi and take off, and got this view past UCSB to the islands that’s much like what they saw if looking out the left.

4440 SB Winter

4440 SB Winter

Looking at it now, I’m remembering them talking this morning about the temperature here (about 80F) and the change they were headed into (Edmonton forecast is -14C). I’m remembering what we saw about this date two years ago when we visited them there.

5433 Edmonton Winter

5433 Edmonton Winter

Yes, that’s a frozen river. This is one of our most colorful aerial views from that trip. Most of the city and countryside is a study in black and white, since anything not covered in snow looks black by contrast. It’s a beautiful and fun city, but of course we hope their taste of SB Winter will draw them here again. 🙂

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2013/02/10

Nice Change

A few days ago the two of us were flying along the magnificent Santa Barbara coast seeing sights like this at Naples just West of town.

2962 Naples Coast

2962 Naples Coast

Starting last night, we’re a large family doing things on the ground together. My precious Daughter and her fun husband brought our delightful Grand Daughter (I call her Lulu) to visit us for a week. So we woke this morning to this warm family scene with Lulu intently enjoying the toys and other kid supplies loaned by our sweet grandparent friends.

4073 Toys N Us

4073 Toys N Us

We’re re-learning all the skills we learned raising our daughter, like kid-proofing hazardous and breakable stuff, keeping toys off the floor, and most importantly how to handle tantrums and naps. Luckily we all have patience, knowledge and skills, and best of all she’s a Perfect Child. We took them to the farmer’s market, and they rather enjoyed the contrast with Edmonton where they were yesterday in sub-zero weather and the color-free realm of snow and ice we visited in February 2011.

4088 Contrast

4088 Contrast

2011/03/19

Days in boots

Filed under: by Anne,Has Photos,Nature,Random,White North Adventure — Anne @ 08:24

While walking downtown in short sleeves, John noted “It’s a little cool today without a jacket.”  Then he heard himself, given recent context of our month in climate 100′ colder than Santa Barbara, and repeated the sentence so we could both take in what an amazingly different experience we were having.  So it seemed fun to revisit this man on a bridge in recently purchased big clumpy warm boots.  Though head and hands are momentarily bare, the car is just across the street.  Behind him is the North Saskatchewan River completely frozen and covered with snow.

1520-not in shirtsleeves

1520 Not in shirtsleeves

On the same outing I snapped this snowy home as we drove by.

1529 Snow House

1529 Snow House

We enjoyed our time there, and it’s fun to see it warmly from this distance.

~by Anne

2011/03/08

Here & Back

 

Snug in our home, it’s tempting to just cozy in for a few days. It’s probably good that we’ve had little errands to take care of around town, because getting out helps us feel even more here. Among today’s stops was a nostalgic visit to Tripp, since strong winds were forecast and we wanted to check her tiedown lines. Walking back to our fun and friendly FBO (Atlantic) we paused to admire the new KSBA terminal building that’s gone from a frame to a building shell in the month we were gone.

1741 New KSBA Terminal

1741 New KSBA Terminal

If you click to see the larger version, you can make out the copper balls astride the main entrance that complement the copper dome atop the building. When we left for Edmonton, that dome was shiny copper and now it’s already wearing a “penny patina.”

Looking further back, I found more pix from the trip home to share. First our quick tour of Spokane on our morning drive back to the airport.

5817 Snow Remnant

5817 Snow Remnant

Guess I’m used to beauty, because the thing I noticed most looking at this just now is that tiny lump of snow at Anne’s feet. Such a contrast to where we’d been the day before! This was the first of several bridges we paused to look at in downtown Spokane, that make it such a river-connected city. This bridge crosses just below a power plant and striking rapids, with a great view of several more bridges upstream.

5819 Water Power

5819 Water Power

Here’s another view of that bridge, from a little upstream. On the large version you can see the gondola rides that are probably great for people with no access to small planes, or who just like being close to white water while keeping dry. I wonder if the windows get all covered with the spray, since it got on my lens when I walked out on the bridge.

5825 Gondolas Under Bridge

5825 Gondolas Under Bridge

Just a little further upstream there’s another view we liked, that offers an eclectic mix of things to look at. We hoped to find the bridge that’s in the moving last scene of the film Smoke Signals, with a version of Dick Lourie’s powerful “Forgiving Our Fathers” poem that evokes for me so many feelings and memories about my father and daughter.

5826 River City

5826 River City

Standing on this spot I felt closest to what spoke to me in that film. Protected by the broken fence with my feet in the slumbering grass of generations. Just a few minutes later, the kind folks at the main airport’s Tower let us get amazing views of the same spots. Slivers of the moment captured above still lingered when we were above it moments later. There is a magic about flying that simultaneously remembers a mouse in that grass and a hawk in the sky.

5833 Spokane's Heart

5833 Spokane's Heart

I love how the bridges radiate out from the small island, as if connecting the entire world to the secret heart of this magnificent city.

5861 City Surround

5861 City Surround

I’d thought of Spokane as a small city, but it stretches for miles in every direction. Well, enough for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll look for some interesting snaps from our flight toward San Jose.

2011/03/07

Lucky Path

Going over photos from our flight to Spokane, we recall both the gradual shift from “black and white” frozen landscapes to color and our good fortune. The water at Sandpoint, ID was starting to thaw, and hints of color appeared. You might notice also the fuzzy skies in the distance, that kept us continually alert to our flight. Several times as the skies grew more fuzzy like this we considered turning back, landing at an airport, or continuing. Maybe it was just the slight difference made by cars and trucks on the highways we followed, but we were always able to comfortably continue even though sometimes the skies on either side were more overcast.

5810 Sandpoint Idaho

5810 Sandpoint Idaho

The patterns in the ice were intricately beautiful, but we were glad that skies continued to improve ahead so we didn’t need to stop there and wait for more Spring-like weather. The route we’d flown North through Boise, Helena and Lethbridge would have been blocked by low clouds.  We’re happy to have chosen the correct path home, and to have left on a good day for the flight.

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