Nobody on the beach.
I feel it in the air,
The summer's out of reach..."
Quoting the words of Don Henley. It is time to mourn the passing of summer, but as a partial compensation we recount the wonderful occasions we had.
Having lost the first kilo of vaction weight and well on the way to the next, it is time to recall the gatherings, family and flights that put them there.
Family Highlights
Being met in LA by Warick, Cassie, Harrison, Elisabeth, Georgiana; vaction together. This is really wonderful to arrive from a long distance and meet people you love in new environs. It drives my interest in the interminable reunion dialor.
"I Love LA," Randy Newman's ambivalent hymn of life in LA booming happily as we walked into the new California-land section of Disneland with my great daughter (in law) and grandkids who like to hold my hand and make me feel blessed just to know them. In a few years I could really get into this grandfather thing. They act as if I am somebody special. I sure think they are.
Taking the "Soaring Over California" IMAX ride with Harrison. He was in his flight helmet and goggles and his hands were actually working throuttle and stick while I lifted my feet to keep them out of the Pacific Waves. That guy has talent. This year he put the plane kit together by himself.
Harrison, in the coming season, we must fly together again.
The hot sun on my back while we sat together between rides and the cool afternoon in the pool while we marveled about Gigi, the Every Ready Bunny swimmer that keeps going and going with a robotic technique that was fascinating and a bit unnerving. Swimming the deep end with Ella in tow clinging to my neck was great; the drive along Newport Beach at sunset, and a nice long discussion over pasta and grandchildren. Oh year, and Ella holding on, and on, on the big Ferris Wheel. Oh, Ella la Belle, when will we meet again? Flying out of LA with Warick, through the hot desert with a 50-80 mph tail wind, flying instruments in a dust storm and landing sweetly in Ogden, my new visiting airport.
Hosted in DC
Being picked up by Adi in Washington and being hosted at her house (nice place) the tour of the Senate and the Capital, does she know her way around or what? I now have a US Senate mug and a leather folder I use every day. Realizing one of the eight murals in the Capital rotunda is sited in Rotterdam! Seeing Adi's friends and being with them. Trying to eat a frozen custard, which turns from a frozen to a liquid state on your shirt in about three seconds. Alan Bean's moon paintings. Dinner with Adi's roommates, discussing men, marriage and spiritual decisions. Nice girls, each with such interesting jobs and talents. Flying Adi back and forth to Winginamen, no muss, noff, 1 hour 11 minutes each way.
In the Pool with the Jerseyites
For some moments those afternoons, nothing was lost by the move to Holland. We were all in the pool, the house was there, the wee girls were beginning to swim on their own and the sun was hot and we were cool. The fields were green the airfield green, the sky blue. In the fall days to come I will gaze upon you often...in the words of Don Henlen...
"But I can see you,
Your brown skin shining in the sun.
You got your hair combed back
And your sunglasses on, baby.
And I tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone."
Relaxed eating with Harland and Amy; there is always something good at their house, trying out the girls beds, recognizing such constancies as the North Star and Abby, applesauce and crackers (her future wedding breakfast and honeymoon meals and lunches and dinners). On the other hand, Abby gave me a hug and kiss which was kind of new to me, and I wasn't wearing applesauce. The engaging looks and the cute sayings of Grace that charm your heart and the watchful coaching of a mother that makes them fly right. Abby Dabby and Grace Ace...until we meet again.
Thar She Blows
With Belinda to Nantucket, the Whaling Musuem and lecture pretty good even by history teacher standards, the real deal, the collection of great scrimshaw in the museum and in the shop, the grey shake houses with hydrangeas blue and purple, the clam chowda' and lobsta' salad, and my favorite,--lounging dockside with Belin' in the warm air while the Cape Cod ferry slipped by as we slurped up melting ice cream cones. Belinda ordered the small cone and her rate of slurping was much less than the rate of melting. She finally gave up and watched the green mess drip drenchingly over the cone, dripping straight to the deck.
Biggest Family Regret
Leaving Ogden with Karen, flying behind the Wasatch Range, we look down to Provo, once home to Lynn and June and many family and personal adventures, how exciting it was to enter the valley cruising high beside Timpanogos Peak, scene of other adventures, and fall out of the sky over Provo, while our excitement gathered for a long and easy stay. Now, on this trip we had not even been there, not even stopped, no more quail or multicolored birds, no more evenings with the Rock Canyon breeze through the window; no more "well how ya doing my dear?", or "you kids, come and give me a hug." They're all gone now. We pass by, behind the mountains as if it all belonged to another life, and we did not want to be observed in our passing. I have grown used to my parents' new abode. The new picture I have of them in Egypt soothes my ancient sense of longing, but Karen's parents for whom I have lofty and loving regard have slipped so suddenly from us. Only last year Karen and I walked Provo in the sunshine of delight to be home from Europe, if just for a summery week or so. It was a happy day. I cannot forget that picture of Provo behind the mountin, and the uneasy pangs within. Is
it all so fragile and forgotten?
Friend Highlights
Jane and Alan at Oshkosh hostingus; getting us in on the inner workings.
Meeting with Bob Rigg after 28 years of now see. Lots of catching up.
Our old Clinton buds in true style hosted a party for us and invited all their great chums. I will never stop loving them.
Vacation Highlights
The delight of LA and its many communities; how the flora has diversified in all these year. Disneyland still works and it has been 34 years since I was there.
Page and Kanab and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon; The Ponderosas powerful, proud, the buffalo and turkey, Bright Angel waters clear and surging below, the glue green water of the Colorado through Angel's Window, the blue water of lower Powell by Lone Butte. Steep banks high over the tangled canyons and turguoise waters, and Rainbow Bridge by Navajo Mountain.
Now for the GORGIOUS Flying
The approach and landing at Osh' always a thrill, as dozens of planes are in the stream. "High wing you are number two to land," but there were a couple T28's that wanted to land too. "Land on the green dot!" Before thousands, who probably really don't care, it is still a thrill to land at the General Conference of aviation. Taking off is also a rush, such a fever, such a rush of intense activity. A hive of planes, procedures and radio traffic, and then, a few minutes later, a frequency change, and you are all on y our own with no other plane acrosee Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, kansas, and still you are alonge and quite. What a strange and sad change--until you feel the pull of the mountains and homelands of your loved ones.
Following a vertical, rotated Osprey O22 into LaJunta; I was on a long downwind and this two rotor vertical airplane was moving in to touchdown. Very unusual.
Chasing down a racing thunderstorm in the throat of the valley to Taos by the Sangre de Cristo Tange; checking mental dexterity after hours at 15,000--ahh, hypoxia.
Speeding descent over the mesa at Mormon Lake, forest fires to the left, swift through the pinyon canyons of layered ivory and maroon sandstone, aiming at the Sedona Aircraft carrier, runway 21, clipping to land--wing down, plane sideways, dumping altitude, while Karen nervously gathers her feet, having never before cross-countrolled to landing, and then settlling in to a nice landing in the wind. Sedone, check that box! Sunset on the cliff.
High over the desert, descending into LA, over the mountain, out of 13,000, turning in over John Wayne Airport for the run up to Seal Beach and then the instrument approach, bypassing Disneyland, it's restricted. Lowering to pattern altitude with Knotts Berry Farm gliding by on the right.
Launching out of Fullerton, with Warick, into a raging tailwind. Near Las Vegas we got up to 230 mph over the ground. 45 minutes in a dust storm on instruments, weird as the Okefenokee Swamp fire. Speaking of fires, a big one billowing out of west Great Salt Lake, right into a thunderstorm over the lake. We cheat right and land at Ogden in 37 mpg gust, but a simple landing.
Lake Powell, you know the drill, over Boulder Mountain, Bullfrom, swooping around Rainbow Bridge and a lovely morning landing at Page on the gem of an airport, after slipping by the dam and Colorado channel, in lining up for the downwind on runway 33. Another check!
"Over there is Monument Valley." "Is there any reason we an't go over there?" We came in over the visitors center at 150 knots down low, below the tops of the buttes, looping around the right mitten and then around the left mitten, then off north through the needles, banking out right to the East, to the Rockies, which were mild, beautiful and high.
In the late sun over the Mississippi for another set up swoops and banks around the Temple at Nauvoo and our ancestral homesites.
Descending across the nose of a climbing C5 over Wright Patterson, I don't think the controller had it on his screen yet. She banked right, I swung left and we ended up parallel.
IFR work at Allentown, a morning hop to the beach at Ocean City, with the parked P51 "Bald Eagle." Hnnn, it must be mine. Best body surfing in years, what's that about a hurricane? Walking back with the drone of a B17 in the air? (air show day before) back high over the Delaware and broken clouds, spiraling descent over Alexandria to landing, Sky King, okay, Sky asset manager. 60 hours, coast to coast to coast, 7 instrument approaches, over two hours in clouds, and dust.
Across the Might Miss, across the Mighty MO,
Over the Rockies, and canyons of Colorado
Over the beach, across the plains
Through the deserts, and mountain rains
I flew through the cloud and blue
On wings of my family fair and true
In moments so longed for, moments so rare
I am still there, flying, somewhere.
"Nobody on the road,
Nobody ont he beach.
I feel it in the air,
The summer's out of reach.
...But I can see you,
Your brown skin shining in the sun.
I see you walking real slow and you're
Smiling at everyone."
Dad
About a kilometer further the traffic slowed down unexpectedly. Why? There were two ducks walking across the road. One large one at the front of 8 little ones with the second on herding behind. They crossed the medium into the oncoming traffic, slowing them, I passed them and watched in the mirror as they crossed the medium again on their way back to the canal.
Adi and Emily at the Maduradam (miniature village in Den Haag).
This, and the following two pictures, is at the Kinderdijk (about 20 minutes from us).
Our leader at the Arc de Triomphe.