John & Anne Wiley

2011/04/08

Going Up

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 00:52

I love to fly. Guess you didn’t know that. 🙂

Seems like I’d love everything that involves going up, but oddly that’s not so. Not so keen on roller coasters, no interest in bungee jumping, little interest in skydiving, though I would like to try hang gliding. Another in the long list of vertical “not so much” options is rock climbing. I like the idea, but it just seems like too much work before/after a climb, and lots of expensive, heavy gear to haul. It’s fun to watch though, and right next to Gibraltar Road above Montecito is a great spot even more fun than the little rock on Painted Cave Road. So flying the hills I often look at rock formations to see if there’s anyone climbing, but have yet to spot anyone while flying.

6773 Going Up

6773 Going Up

Yesterday we went on a short flight before the weather changed to blustery and wet today, and though I couldn’t tell from the air this telephoto shot when cropped down reveals someone going up the rock face. Cool! Looking at this does give me the urge to try rappelling some time. Maybe someone will offer a swap for flying, since there’s no way I’d buy or rent all the gear much less learn to use it. Any takers? Meanwhile, I’ve put different pix of this on my Photo Page and on Edhat that show the others further down on the rock.

2011/04/07

Terminal Lunch

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 05:15

There was a Booth cartoon years ago that featured a guy in a cafe, and there was a detail in the drawing that got me giggling many times. Backwards on the glass door looking out toward the street you could read the name of the place: Terminal Lunch. Well as you may have guessed, my theme tonite is a followup on Anne’s post yesterday about the new SBA airline terminal construction.

6729 SBA Construction

6729 SBA Construction

Being so much larger than the old one, I’m hoping it will have at least one nice cafe where we can sit and watch planes come and go as we enjoy a snack and some snippets. You know, those little tidbits of overheard conversation like when someone passes on the street just as they say, “So are you going to sue?” We like to tell each other stories based on those snippets.

6727 Copper Top

6727 Copper Top

Of course, my fav feature of the new building is the copper-topped turret. I’d pay extra if we could sit up there! As you’ve guessed, I snapped these just after takeoff today so they’re closer and maybe you can more clearly make out some details.

2011/04/06

SBA & Tripp’s home

Filed under: Aviation,by Anne,Flying,Has Photos,SB Region,Tripp — Anne @ 05:12

Our Airport (SBA) is Tripp’s home base and the one we fly out of.  I left the strut of our plane in the upper left corner for context. This particular view is an unusual path, above runway 33 on the left, with the larger runway 25 at the top.  When ‘parked’ Tripp sits below with the other planes and usually there are many more giving her company.

1926 SBA runway 33

1926 SBA runway 33

Santa Barbara’s new terminal is in process, scheduled to open this summer.  The original terminal is the small top curved part of the red tile roof.  People are concerned the new terminal is too big and wrecks the flavor of SB, but it’s looking good to me and adds much needed space.  Here’s a closer view so you can decide for yourself.

1927 SBA terminal in process

1927 SBA terminal in process

Having flown in most of the country and Canada, I can say this airspace, with ocean behind and mountains ahead, is spectacularly beautiful to fly in, out, and around…but maybe especially to fly home to.

by ~Anne

2011/04/05

Other Way

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Random,SB Region — John @ 00:44

Looking the other way (South) from near Gibraltar Reservoir, the view across the Santa Ynez Mountains toward Santa Barbara was beautiful in the glow of approaching sunset.

6689 Peak to Pier

6689 Peak to Pier

I breathed another deep sigh looking at that just now. While flying, the rock formations caught my eye of course so I flew a bit closer and snapped this.

6691 Rock Crest

6691 Rock Crest

Any idea how many times I’d need to fly in a 10 mile radius of KSBA to get tired of it? Keep in mind, I’ve probably done it close to 1,000 times already. 🙂

ps-just realized I hadn’t posted any Gibraltar Dam pix here (several on Photo Page & Edhat links in the right column here). So here’s a closer view of the spillway just for you.

6678 Spill Veil

6678 Spill Veil

Looks like the builders left some of the original rock in place, and the veil splits on the second spillway from the right.

2011/04/03

Tooth Tour

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,Random,SB Region — John @ 00:51

White. That’s what we see out the window today. Much of the day it was white past a couple of blocks away. Right now I can dimly make out a nearby hill. Not once have we seen the mountains. All the happier then, that we decided to take a quick sunset flight up to look at the hills. As you may recall, one of my fav features in our view is “Tooth Rock” aka Cathedral Peak. From here it looks very much like an incisor or eye tooth, sticking up from a saddle going up to the ridge near La Cumbre Peak.

6667 Tooth Territory

6667 Tooth Territory

Above it how it looked in context with the surrounding territory as we approached. Yesterday it turned out we flew directly toward it from the airport because nothing else seemed to draw us. There was already haze forming below about 2,000 feet, so the hills called to us as we climbed high enough to see that they were still in relatively clear air. We’d also wanted to see if there was much snow still on the back country peaks (there isn’t). There are probably other pix from the flight that I’ll share here in the next few days (especially if it stays foggy), but I wanted to share this closer shot of Tooth Rock because although it’s a little blurry due to the fading light and the cave at the base only partly shows in the frame, I really like this angle.

6668 Tooth Essence

6668 Tooth Essence

It really shows the tooth essence I get looking at it from home. It’s actually a relatively thin slab of stone rather than a conical shape as the angle of the light here seems to show, so I like how this retains that illusion while adding the texture and detail missing from back here on the ground (if we could see it today!).

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