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Pretend I'm writing this on Tuesday. :-)
Rob and I went on a trip this past weekend. He'd been planning it for months and finally found a time we could go. The destination was a surprise for me. I had to tell people at work "I'll be out Friday" and then, when asked where I'd be, reply "I don't know." :-) That was fun. When I came back, everyone wanted to hear about it!
We went to the chiropractor on the way out of town. Of course he too wanted to know where we were headed :-). Once at the airport, I realized that for the first time since September 11th, we could legally fly VFR! Woohoo! Helped a neighbor push his aircraft into his tie-down spot and of course he too wanted to know where we were headed. I sat in the plane, where I couldn't hear, while Rob told him. :-)
Eastbound. Rob picked a nearby airway intersection to head for. Every half hour or so thereafter, Rob would find another intersection or airport or navaid along the route and draw the next line segment on the GPS screen. He was teasing me about not knowing where we were going. I was saying things like "Maybe Arizona?". Whenever he had to talk to air traffic control about routing, he'd push the "pilot isolate" button on the intercom system so I couldn't hear.
(I love those pilot-isolate buttons. Flying my mom, or a group of children, around the sky and having to make sure I don't miss ATC instructions... pilot-isolate is a godsend.)
Got a good picture of Joe from the air. Well, ok, a picture of Lee Vining, where Joe was at the time. Hee!
Landed at Bryce Canyon. Cool! Maybe we're staying near Bryce Canyon. I've never seen that area from the ground. Oops - nope, just refueled and went on.
When we reached the Four Corners area (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah) I figured Arizona was a bad guess. :-) Had fun taking pictures of the exact four-corners spot from the air. It's easily recognizable even from 13,000 feet because it has a little tourist parking lot around it.
Landed at Farmington, New Mexico. I had been there before, in 1998, just after getting my license. Took my family there for what pilots call a "$100 hamburger". What, besides a good airport restaurant, is in Farmington? Hmm. Rented some kind of SUV-looking thing with good ground clearance. Hmm. Downtown, met Lindy, who gave us a walkie-talkie and instructed us to follow her Jeep. North... past the last bit of pavement and up a dry riverbed - left turn up a gully - right at the second wash - my, this road sucks - through several gates - and we came out on the top of a sandstone cliff overlooking the valley a few hundred feet below. End of road, park it. Hmmmm. Rob is NOT a camping sort of guy...
Narrow trail cut into the cliff face. Don't slip. Seventy feet below the top we arrived at a sliding glass door right in the stone. Lindy was clearly watching for my reaction. She had been warned that it was a surprise. I was puzzled. We opened the doors... and stepped into the cave.
Wow.
That website doesn't do it justice. It's beautiful. A 1600 square foot house built into a sandstone cave seventy feet below the top of the cliff. It sits on its own 400-acre plot north of Farmington. Done up now as the most private B&B in existence. Water, electrical, full kitchen, jacuzzi, you name it it's got it. And you can hike or climb or four-wheel or sunbathe all over those 400 acres of desert.
The first day we spent lounging about - reading books, drinking the free wine that comes with the place, and feeding the chipmunks and bluejays. Later in the evening we put out a small handful of food for the not-quite-tame nocturnal beasties: a fox, who'll happily stay up late for free food, and a "ring-tailed cat", relative of the raccoon. The two of them will eat together. They'll even eat within a few feet of a human. They vanish temporarily when the human moves, but come back quickly. That fox was beyooootiful. I have a gazillion pictures of him.
Next day, next entry!
Rob and I went on a trip this past weekend. He'd been planning it for months and finally found a time we could go. The destination was a surprise for me. I had to tell people at work "I'll be out Friday" and then, when asked where I'd be, reply "I don't know." :-) That was fun. When I came back, everyone wanted to hear about it!
We went to the chiropractor on the way out of town. Of course he too wanted to know where we were headed :-). Once at the airport, I realized that for the first time since September 11th, we could legally fly VFR! Woohoo! Helped a neighbor push his aircraft into his tie-down spot and of course he too wanted to know where we were headed. I sat in the plane, where I couldn't hear, while Rob told him. :-)
Eastbound. Rob picked a nearby airway intersection to head for. Every half hour or so thereafter, Rob would find another intersection or airport or navaid along the route and draw the next line segment on the GPS screen. He was teasing me about not knowing where we were going. I was saying things like "Maybe Arizona?". Whenever he had to talk to air traffic control about routing, he'd push the "pilot isolate" button on the intercom system so I couldn't hear.
(I love those pilot-isolate buttons. Flying my mom, or a group of children, around the sky and having to make sure I don't miss ATC instructions... pilot-isolate is a godsend.)
Got a good picture of Joe from the air. Well, ok, a picture of Lee Vining, where Joe was at the time. Hee!
Landed at Bryce Canyon. Cool! Maybe we're staying near Bryce Canyon. I've never seen that area from the ground. Oops - nope, just refueled and went on.
When we reached the Four Corners area (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah) I figured Arizona was a bad guess. :-) Had fun taking pictures of the exact four-corners spot from the air. It's easily recognizable even from 13,000 feet because it has a little tourist parking lot around it.
Landed at Farmington, New Mexico. I had been there before, in 1998, just after getting my license. Took my family there for what pilots call a "$100 hamburger". What, besides a good airport restaurant, is in Farmington? Hmm. Rented some kind of SUV-looking thing with good ground clearance. Hmm. Downtown, met Lindy, who gave us a walkie-talkie and instructed us to follow her Jeep. North... past the last bit of pavement and up a dry riverbed - left turn up a gully - right at the second wash - my, this road sucks - through several gates - and we came out on the top of a sandstone cliff overlooking the valley a few hundred feet below. End of road, park it. Hmmmm. Rob is NOT a camping sort of guy...
Narrow trail cut into the cliff face. Don't slip. Seventy feet below the top we arrived at a sliding glass door right in the stone. Lindy was clearly watching for my reaction. She had been warned that it was a surprise. I was puzzled. We opened the doors... and stepped into the cave.
Wow.
That website doesn't do it justice. It's beautiful. A 1600 square foot house built into a sandstone cave seventy feet below the top of the cliff. It sits on its own 400-acre plot north of Farmington. Done up now as the most private B&B in existence. Water, electrical, full kitchen, jacuzzi, you name it it's got it. And you can hike or climb or four-wheel or sunbathe all over those 400 acres of desert.
The first day we spent lounging about - reading books, drinking the free wine that comes with the place, and feeding the chipmunks and bluejays. Later in the evening we put out a small handful of food for the not-quite-tame nocturnal beasties: a fox, who'll happily stay up late for free food, and a "ring-tailed cat", relative of the raccoon. The two of them will eat together. They'll even eat within a few feet of a human. They vanish temporarily when the human moves, but come back quickly. That fox was beyooootiful. I have a gazillion pictures of him.
Next day, next entry!
