John & Anne Wiley

2010/09/15

Sleep & Renewal

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,MeriTimes Adventure,People,Random,Relationships,Tripp — John @ 05:06

We’ve managed to shift our sleep schedule to an easier time-frame. A couple of nights ago we worked until sunrise on an update of the “C4” website. That’s our nickname for the thoughtful group that’s experiencing explosive growth in their grassroots organizing to elect four new candidates to the Santa Barbara City College governing body: the Board of Trustees. The nickname actually comes from the group’s full name Citizens For SBCC (aka Citizens4SBCC.org – the website I mentioned). It’s a wonderful group of people who care deeply about education, fiscal responsibility, transparency and collaboration (see the website for info).

Anyway, our sleep has been totally zonko. Last night we caught up a bit and tonight we’re already sagging at 10pm so maybe tomorrow morning we’ll be back on track. Today we drove out to pamper Tripp a bit and went for a short flight to Santa Paula to stretch her wings and fill her with fuel. Because we were climbing over the hills enroute, we were higher than usual for a harbor tour.

1049 Translucent Harbor

1049 Translucent Harbor

The water, like the air today, was especially magical. The light haze gave it all a soft veiled effect. The extra altitude also provided a slightly different perspective on Our Town nestled between mountains and seas.

1051 Harbor to Mountains

1051 Harbor to Mountains

Such a beautiful place to fly! Needless to say, it rekindled our interest in starting off on our MerriTimes Adventure! So with one more tweak on Tripp (hopefully tomorrow), we’ll be ready to start packing and decide whether to take off tomorrow afternoon or wait until Thursday or later. We haven’t looked at weather yet, but the recent pattern has been good for departure in the afternoon or early evening.

We’ve struggled a bit with each others’ feelings about all this, but it’s so delightful when we slow down to check in with ourselves and our beloved with the tools we’ve learned and developed in the past decade or two. In many ways, we enjoy such disagreements. I can think of two reasons right away: first, the disagreements have energy and help nudge us toward dialog that leads to conscious closeness. Second, it’s such delicious fun to make up! 🙂

So shall we start a new Adventure? Would it be best to just get started even if only an hour or two before stopping to tent somewhere? Better to sleep one last night in our cozy home and get an early start once any coastal fog clears? Might we want to create a more detailed plan, or just go with our current general notion and follow the “whethers?” That is, Whether we feel like flying, resting, or exploring on the ground at any point. Whether we’d like to detour off our track and look at something from the air or ground (Grand Canyon, Chaco Canyon, Monument Valley, etc.). Whether the weather forecast looks best for picking up the pace or pausing in some interesting place, like we did in Greenville, SC on our Big Adventure several lifetimes ago.

Or, maybe we’ll just keep working on our sleep schedule and Fall weather will rewrite our vision of reaching the Maritimes on this trip.

2010/09/09

Endless Spring

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,MeriTimes Adventure,Random,SB Region — John @ 05:50

Santa Barbarians are a bit grumpy lately. The weather has been cooler than usual, with much more low cloud and fog – especially along the coast. We waited for it to clear Saturday afternoon, and got this sunset shot from just offshore of the airport looking northeast.

1040 Goleta Pier

1040 Goleta Pier

Even on this “good” day it was much cooler than normal, and there was still fog trying to pour over the islands. Today it succeeded and sunset saw clouds surrounding our mountain tops. Even so the clouds offered soft pastel colors to accent an orange tree thick with juicy fruit.

1046 Cloud Cap

1046 Cloud Cap

I’m glad we’ve had our Summer experiences elsewhere this year on our NxNW Adventure. Some of the hot and humid weather on the trip made us appreciate the unusual fog and clouds here, and we’ve flown out from under it a few times to get some hot sun just a few minutes’ ride beyond the mountains. I hope this long stretch of Spring weather patterns doesn’t portend a wet Winter. I wonder how the weather will be when we take off for our MerriTimes Adventure. We’re starting to talk about dates now, and in a few days we’ll look at forecasts and make a plan.

2010/09/07

Glacier To Medford

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,NxNW Adventure,People,Random — John @ 12:52

Here are a few more pix from the Glacier Park to Medford leg of our NxNW Adventure. We were telling friends the other day that it’s fun to review the pix again for this review of the trip, because each photo puts us right back in that moment. It’s impossible to really remember the trip, aside from the vivid memories that come up at random. Looking at the pix though, calls up the memories quite strongly. We can look at one and start talking about what was going on at that moment, and find ourselves drawn back into more than just the visual framework. For example, when I saw this dam at Coeur d’Alene it seemed as if I could smell the river and feel the spray on my face.

0727 Coeur d'Alene Dam

0727 Coeur d'Alene Dam

I remember wondering what the lake and these falls looked like before the two dams were built (the original post during our trip has a wide shot that shows them). Then below the other dam I noticed bright colors below the rapids.

0728 River Run

0728 River Run

The three boats at the right, and a few boats among the cabins on the near shore, got me imagining the fun of going down the river. Watching the shore drift by, dabbling my feet in the ripples…

Later near where the Snake joins the Columbia, the landscaping done by massive floods over millennia offered shapes that are endlessly fascinating. Musings seemed to flood the plane.

0734 Flood Plane

0734 Flood Plane

I’ve already shared the best snaps of Crater Lake (though the low light and air quality challenged my ability), so I’ll close with this shot Anne caught in the fading light as we turned “base” to land at Medford. I sighed deeply again looking at it just now, as my heart and mind overflowed again.

0372 Medford Dusk

0372 Medford Dusk

2010/09/05

Banff & Beyond

Filed under: Flying,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,NxNW Adventure,People,Random,Tripp — John @ 21:10

In a quiet moment just now, I looked again at pix from our NxNW Adventure approaching Banff. It’s so beautiful I had to post a few more. Here are two that give some context for the Banff Lodge pix I posted during the trip.

0667 Banff Approach

0667 Banff Approach

The small city is mostly out of frame to the left, and the lodge is just visible to the right of the bend of the river beneath the jagged peak.

0676 Over Banff

0676 Over Banff

Now we’re over the edge of the city with the lodge just right and beyond the white water rapids. To my eye that peak looks like it was once the bottom of a lake or sea, lifted up to that freakish angle by whatever forces created these mountains.

Passing along the valley to the South we saw innumerable striking vistas, and quite a few more glacial waters.

0710 More Turquoise

0710 More Turquoise

In ordinary terrain, the turquoise water and stark mountain would attract visitors from miles around. In this glut of magnificence it blends into the background. Even what we saw next couldn’t put much of a dent in our joy that such places are preserved for future generations.

It was a bit shocking though, to see what a few years’ supply of fossil fuel extraction leaves behind.

0718 Open Sore

0718 Open Sore

Since it’s miles from Banff and away from main roads at about 50.196572, -114.812794, maybe most Canadians don’t realize this is going on. Only the ragged row of mountains beyond is silently watching.

2010/09/03

Fog Fun

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 03:05

We took Tripp up for a fun flight this evening, intending to fly an hour or two with brief stop at Santa Paula for fuel and return at sunset. As we walked across the field to trusty Tripp (who seemed to me a bit excited to use her wings), my eye was seeing a different flight. Even though Tripp has all the latest gear to fly on instruments, my license doesn’t have the required notation to use it. The fog I could see blowing over UCSB made it clear that we had an hour at best before my VFR (Visual Flight Rules = no fog) license would make landing back at SBA unlikely. So we changed plans.

Taking off on Runway 33 we got a beautiful view of downtown with fog menacing the entire shoreline to Ventura in the West and beyond where the coast turns South toward L.A.

1013 Foggy Coast

1013 Foggy Coast

So we just flew to the harbor and back, enjoying the unusual weather while keeping one eye on the airport. Because of the westerly wind blowing along the shoreline, we could see the fog moving among the trees on the hills of the “Mesa” and Hope Ranch areas. So fun to watch!

1031 Fluffy Fingers

1031 Fluffy Fingers

Years ago, before getting my pilot license, we used to drive the Big Sur coast occasionally so I could gasp. Every time we drove there, several times I would take an audible deep breath. It was involuntary, and so predictable that we took to counting them. Well it happens much more often now that we fly, and not just in the Big Sur area. Our twenty minute flight today was a two gasp jaunt that consumed far less time and fuel than those scenic drives.

Flying the Big Sur coast is nice, but in some ways driving it is still better. Driving from here is an all-day adventure each way, with only brief stretches of highway along the scenic coast before the views get gasp-ish at San Simeon. Flying it again is in our near-term to-do list, as is repeating our way of touring it in more detail. We land at Monterey, ride the inexpensive metro bus to the southern end of the line, get off and enjoy the environs for a while, then catch a later bus back to our plane for the flight home. This gives us four views of that amazing place, all in an easy day from home. Meanwhile, I can get my gasps from a few minutes of flying around SB in Tripp.

1037 Hope Hills

1037 Hope Hills

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