Today was a big day for me, meeting precious little grand daughter for the first time. Holding her was very emotional, bringing back sweet memories of holding my daughter as though it were yesterday. I’m a lucky man.
1422 Holding a Miracle
2011/02/12
2011/02/13
Green Memories
One of the first photos after our 2/7 takeoff from SBA was this private airstrip in the greening hills of Santa Ynez Valley near Neverland Ranch. With all the snow (and in this unseasonably warm heat wave, slush) here it’s fun to take a few minutes for looking through the photos from our flight that I’d only had time to glance at and file for moments like this. I’m smiling now, both from the great day’s visit with family and from this snap from only a few daze ago that brings a faint smell of Summer grass.
5278 Private Airport
Maybe when the wildflowers bloom we can get permission to land on this beautiful airstrip. We could walk to the edge and stand in nature next to Tripp, to smell the flowers and notice small critters like we did in North Dakota last Summer on the way to Oshkosh. sigh… 🙂
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2011/02/14
Down Time
We had the day to ourselves, so we caught up on some stuff and then went exploring South Edmonton Common. It’s anything but common, being the largest outdoor mall on the continent. In a way it didn’t seem that big, but probably just because it sprawls over so many acres it’s like a collection of small malls with roads between them rather than the massive mall it is with an internal road network.
We didn’t snap a single pic today, but with the cellphone I caught Tripp looking spiffy at the airport yesterday. It was clear so we thought about flying today, but decided to give Tripp some rest and wait in case Jasper clears up.
06_495 Tripp at EFC
Part of our morning was looking at pix of the trip, so here are two more from the first day. I liked how Morro Bay looked from a little further away with the sun highlighting water and Spring.
5289 Green & Blue
Looking to the right up the coast past Whale Rock Reservoir, bucolic Big Sur beckons in the misty distance.
5296 Whale To Sur
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2011/02/15
Memories
Memories can be golden or green, among other colors. They can have music and dancing, or unforgettable aromas of youth. Sitting in the doctor’s waiting room with our daughter, the conversation roamed from logistics and topics of the moment, back to her childhood and ours touching also on our new shared delight who was sleeping blissfully among us. The golden glow of those moments mixed with the close smell of precious new baby.
Somehow it all has me drifting back to my daughter’s birth, and beyond to my earliest memories. So looking tonight at another photo from our flight evokes the memory of zipping past King City’s row of pungent eucalyptus in a flicker of sun and shade, lying on my back in the station wagon as the family drove along Highway 101. Wires rhythmically going up and down imitating waves over a sea of fields. Some brown, some green, in neat rows of crop cycles from planting to harvest in the endless California Summer. Birth and aging all blend into memories some day forgotten until the next crop invents new life following familiar patterns.
5307 Stages of Green
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2011/02/16
Generations
Well this sure is a memorable trip! First cruising above parts of California my family has explored on foot and by car, and my Dad had seen glimpses of from small planes. His solo flight when I was barely a toddler is one of my earliest memories, and probably has some role in my fascination with flying. The hills of California always evoke memories of childhood, and sometimes of him. Oh, how he’d love to fly with us as Anne’s pilot Dad has done several times. Even though my Dad’s father was born in Pennsylvania, he too was mostly Californian, so flying over the state is a generational connection back into the hazy past.
5308 Folds of Memory
Now, just a week after capturing that time and place I’m getting to know the next generation as she seems to look into my soul. Anne snapped this just after this little angel gave me a smile that, like my daughter’s, made me hers forever.
1465 Generations
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John & Anne Wiley 
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