Spring Has [Finally] Sprung at the Aerie

Posted on May 22, 2017 by Maria Langer

After a long winter and several “false springs,” spring has arrived with a vengeance.

It was a long, cold winter here in Central Washington State.

(At least that’s what they tell me. I wasn’t around. I went south and suspect I’ll be doing that most winters.)

This Mavic Pro image, shot one afternoon not long after my return in March, shows the snow that slid off the roof and accumulated in front of my garage doors during the winter. There was an even bigger pile on the south side of the building, which has a bigger roof.

The cold reached deep enough into the ground to freeze the water lines running to the homes at the end of my road. The snow fell in storm after storm piling up and eventually sliding off my roof into big piles on the north and south sides of my home. And in March, which is normally when the weather starts getting good, every night temperatures dipped below freezing, stalling the wakening of the orchards. Even in April there were bouts of cold weather — as recently as last Monday, I woke to the sound of wind machines in the cherry orchard near my home.

Perennial balsam root, a native plant, started blooming in April and was finished by mid-May.

We had a few warm spells in April that fooled a lot of us into thinking that spring had finally arrived. The local supermarkets and big box stores opened their garden shops and began selling flowers and vegetables for planting. I planted some cold-weather plants — brussels sprouts and broccoli, for example — that survived through subsequent cold spells, as well as some herbs, such as basil, that did not.

Cherry blossoms on one of my two young cherry trees. I might actually get fruit this year!

I worried about the cherry trees, knowing that a serious frost could impact my clients’ orchards and, ultimately, the number of contracts I’d get for my summer work. The cherries bloomed and were sufficiently pollinated, although some clients in Quincy had early fruit drop and decided to skip a season.

Last week, spring seemed to finally take hold. After a few cold nights and chilly, rainy days, the temperature began to rise — by about 10° each day! By Sunday, it was in the 80s and I found it necessary to adjust the irrigation in my garden to provide my vegetables with enough water to grow.

Meanwhile, mother nature had watered the rest of my property. The wild grasses, sagebrush, and wildflowers took off in a wild growth spurt that I didn’t even notice until it was time to mow a path to my Lookout Point bench. The point is in the northwest edge of my property, positioned just before the land drops off into a wildlife corridor owned by the local utility company. Since most of my 10 acres is natural vegetation, I need to mow a path from my driveway to the bench to access it. I have a string mower I use for that but it needed a new axle after I ran it over with my truck. (Note to self: do not park anything in front of the truck’s garage door.) By the time I picked up the mower from the repair shop, the grass was 18 to 24 inches high in some places. I got the mower started and used it to mow my way down to the bench, mow around the bench, and mow a wider path back. I suspect I’ll have to mow it two more times before autumn.

The path I mowed down to my bench. I could not believe how tall the grass was along the way.

I began a wildflower class with the local college’s continuing education program. Every Tuesday evening we meet on a trail in the foothills to discuss, dissect, draw, and identify flowers. Most, if not all, of the same flowers grow around my home.

I’ve also started mushroom hunting, although I was apparently too early for the elevations I was hunting at. I suspect I’ll do better later this week.

My garden has taken off — and so have the weeds between the raised beds. Every morning I spend about 30 minutes pulling weeds and feeding them to my chickens.

I’ve caught two bee swarms (so far) and I’m ready to spilt the two healthiest colonies.

And this moment, as I type this, every single window in my home is wide open to let fresh air in. I haven’t heard the heat kick on in over a week and I suspect I won’t hear it again until autumn.

Spring is finally here — and not a moment too soon. Now let’s hope it sticks around for a while. I’m never in a hurry for summer.

Hauling Water

Posted on April 1, 2017 by Maria Langer

When the water stopped running…and what I did about it.

I first heard about the problem when I got an email sent out to all members of the road maintenance association on February 8:

The water main has frozen at the S turn near Lot 7. Neighbors are experiencing very low or no water. Malaga Water district has reviewed the situation and believes it will stay frozen until thaw.
They have offered to get 5 gallon water jugs to the Malaga Water district HQ and make them available to us if needed.

I was in Arizona at the time, in transit between Wickenburg and Willow Beach on the Colorado River, where I’d camp for two nights and soak in a wonderful desert hot spring. It was t-shirt weather on a beautiful sunny day. It was the final month of my 2016/17 winter snowbirding trip south and I didn’t plan on getting back to my home in Washington for another month. The email message sent me a mixed message: “stay frozen until thaw” sounded like a long-term issue but “water jugs…available to us if needed” sounded like hauling in water might not be needed.

I should mention here that this isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s the third. The last time was eight years ago — years before I bought my lot — and the line stayed frozen until March 22. When it finally defrosted, the water company supposedly put a concrete “blanket” over the pipe and reburied it. They assumed the problem had been solved when it didn’t happen again.

Until this year.

Mean temperature percentiles per the National Weather Service. Find more info here.

This has been an unusually cold winter here in the Pacific Northwest. While it was warmer than average nearly everywhere else in country, the northwestern United States, including all of Washington state, has been colder. There’s also been a ton of snow, some of which remains on my driveway in front of my car garage after having slid off the roof multiple times all winter. More than a few of my friends in the area made a point of telling me that I picked a good winter to go away. (Little do they realize that I plan on going away most winters.)

A satellite view of my road with the cliff to the south. The originally suspected problem area is in yellow; the actual problem area is in orange. I live nearly a mile east of this spot.

Making the problem worse is that the water line runs under our privately maintained road, which gets zero direct sunlight for months at a time in the winter. Why? Because it’s on the north side of a nearly sheer 1000-foot cliff. Because of our northern latitude, the sun doesn’t rise high enough in the sky in the winter to clear the cliff, leaving the road in shadow. I’ve observed this phenomena at my own home and blogged about it here. My place, which is farther north of the cliff than the road and many of my neighbors, is in the shadows for just six weeks; the problem area of the road is in the shadows for more than two months.

Time went on. I continued my trip northwest through Death Valley and eventually to the Sacramento area. I flew back to Arizona to fetch my helicopter, which would be on a frost contract in that area for two months. I tried to have fun in “sunny California,” but it seemed to rain more often than not. I got a temporary job helping a friend with his spray operations. But the whole time I was in California, I was feeling homesick and wanted to go home.

I checked in with my next door neighbor regularly. The water still wasn’t flowing. She and her family of five were showering at the Y. They made weekly trips to the laundromat. At first, they melted show for toilet water; now they were hauling it.

But by March 12, I’d had enough of my extended road trip. I began the drive home, taking a leisurely route up the California coast with the idea of getting in on March 17. The trip was great — at least the first few days — but then the weather turned nasty. I pointed my rig inland on March 15 and rolled down my driveway the following day.

There was still no water.

Of course, my camper had water. I also had my four 6-1/2 gallon water jugs with me. I’d stopped at the water company office to top everything off. I figured I could always use the camper’s toilet and shower.

But I didn’t want to. I wanted to use a real toilet and shower.

I hauled water up the stairs in those 6-1/2 gallon jugs for a few days. During my travels, I’d rigged up a DC pump with hoses to transfer water from the jugs into my camper without having to lift the jugs; I now put that to work in my kitchen so I could wash silverware and pots with “running” water. (I was using paper plates.)

My neighbor, Elizabeth, had a well with a broken pump. She had the pump fixed and invited neighbors to shower at her place. I took her up on that offer. She has a nice shower in her guest bathroom. I also filled water jugs there.

But when March 22 came and went, I’d had enough. I needed a better solution.

Tanks like these are designed to fit in the back of a pickup truck for transporting water.

My neighbors, Al and Kathy, have a winery (and a well). The previous autumn, I’d noticed that they had a water hauling tank sitting neglected and unused in their yard near their burn pile. I’d asked if they were using it and was told they weren’t. I asked about buying it — with the crazy idea of gathering water for irrigation off my huge roof — and they said yes. But I hadn’t done anything about it then.

Fortunately, it was still sitting there in March, nestled in the snow. I asked again. The 425 gallon tank had never been used — in fact, it didn’t even have fittings or a valve at the bottom. Other than cobwebs and a bit of organic matter, it was pretty clean. I bought it for $100 — what a deal! I just found the same tank online for $332 — and Al and another neighbor, JR, loaded it onto my truck. I used a ratchet tie down to prevent it from sliding out the back.

I followed JR’s suggestion and brought it down to the car wash where I cleaned the inside as well as possible with a power washer.

I went to a local irrigation supply place and spent $25 on a valve and fittings to connect it to a standard garden hose.

I went on Amazon and spent $80 on a Shurflo pressure regulated pump that would automatically shut off when there was no demand for water. The trick was finding one with enough power to get the water up about 15 feet to my second floor living space. And I spent another $10 on fittings to attach that to a standard garden hose. And another $5 to turn the pump’s loose wires into a plug.

By Saturday, March 25 — nine days after returning home — I was ready.

Flashback: Howard Mesa 2005

My wasband and I used to own an off-the-grid camping cabin on 40 acres of land in northern Arizona. That area is notorious for its low water table and nearly everyone up there hauls their own water — including us.

Water could be purchased from a vending machine off the main road between Valle and Williams. You’d pull your tank up under it, set the hose in the top of the tank, and stick a $10 bill into the vending machine. 450 gallons of water would immediately gush out of the hose and into the tank.

I remember hauling water once using a neighbor’s tank like the one I have now. The truck would be pretty stable until I hit about 50 miles per hour. At that point, the sloshing would make it difficult to control and I’d have to slow down. I only did it once or twice — it was a vacation home and we had 2,100 gallons of water storage up there — but can’t imagine what it must have been like to do it several times a week for a family.

I went to Elizabeth’s house with my new tank and wrenches and fittings and some plumbers tape and set the valve and fittings into the tank. I turned off the valve so the tank would hold water.

I ran Elizabeth’s garden hose to the top of the tank and turned on the water.

The tank holds more than 400 gallons. It takes a long time to pump 400 gallons from a garden hose. I sat in my truck and read the newspaper. Every once in a while, the truck would creak and shift as the weight of the water settled it lower and lower on its axles. Do the math: 400 gallons x 8 pounds per gallon = 3,200 pounds.

Here’s the tank on my truck, parked on my driveway after yesterday’s refill.

At about 300 gallons, I got tired of waiting and turned off the water. I put the cap back on the tank and started the drive home. The water sloshed, making the truck feel somewhat unstable. But it was a short drive — only about a mile — and I didn’t go very fast. I backed the truck up on my concrete apron in front of my big garage door. I threw about a half cup of bleach into the tank to prevent algae from growing in it.

I noticed a slight leak from the fittings. Not much; maybe three drips per minute. I tried tightening up the fittings but didn’t see much improvement.

Here’s the pump after mounting it on a piece of scrap wood and propping it up so the water leaks away from it. I think that when this is all over, I’ll rework the fittings and permanently mount it near the hose bib.

I connected a garden hose from the tank and ran it into the garage. Then I connected it to the pump. That’s where I had some difficulty. You see, Shurflo pumps are designed to be used with Shurflo fittings. Although the manual said it should connect to a standard 1/2 inch pipe fitting, it didn’t thread exactly right. I had a bitch of a time getting it set up — on both sides of the pump. Eventually, however, I got it connected for inflow and outflow and connected the outflow end to a hose bib in my garage.

I call this my Frankenstein monster. Water comes into my home through the black pipe on the right through a valve (off in this photo) and then into a number of PEX fittings that bring it down to 3/4 inch. From there, it goes up into my home as well as to the right through another valve (on in this photo) to my hose bib. My first plumbing job. Hey, it works.

This is where things are a little non-standard. Regular readers might recall that I lived in my RV inside the garage for the winter before my living space was done. When I set up the water system in my building, I included a hose fitting with its own valve that I was able to use to feed water to my camper. It can also be used to drain all the water out of my home’s plumbing system. So I was already set up for water input, although I hadn’t ever expected to use the valve this way. I just shut off the water from the street into my building and turned on the valve between my building and the hose attached to the pump. Then I plugged in the pump.

It ran. It ran for well over a minute. I was just beginning to wonder whether it would automatically shut off when the system was fully pressurized when it stuttered a few times and went quiet.

I went upstairs and flushed the toilet. (I have my priorities straight.) The tank had fill automatically and was filling again.

There was water at the sink faucet.

I came back downstairs to look at the pump. It was leaking at both fittings. I wasn’t surprised. Still, I knew I’d done the best that I could. (Later, I’d order Shurflo fittings and wind up not using them when they arrived. If it ain’t broke…)

I mounted the pump on a piece of scrap wood and angled it up so the water would drip away from the pump. There’s a drain in my garage so the water would eventually find its way out.

Then I turned on the water heater. (I’d had a friend turn it off while I was away when I heard there was no water. I was slightly concerned that the water would somehow drain out and burn up my heating element. None of that happened.) I’d have my first hot shower at home later in the day.

I figured that since I had come up with a solution, the water would come back the next day. But no, there’s still no water to the homes on our road.

Since then, it’s been pretty much business as usual at my house. I turn on the tap and water comes out. I do laundry and use the dishwasher. I shower and wash up. I am a bit more thoughtful about letting the water run and I admit that I haven’t filled up my 80-gallon bathtub yet.

The only difference is that I don’t drink the tap water. I have bottled water for making coffee, cooking, and drinking.

That first tank of water lasted me nearly a week. Yesterday, I drove out to Elizabeth’s again. While the tank filled with water, I helped her install chicken wire at the top of her chicken coop to prevent birds of prey from getting in or chickens from getting out. This time, I let it the water go almost to the top. It must have taken at least a half hour to fill. Back home, I connected the hose to the tank, turned on the pump again, and was good to go.

Is this a hardship? Not with this solution. Living a week without running water was driving me nuts — and I had to come up with a solution. It’s unfortunate, however, that my truck is tied up with water duty. I need to buy some lumber for a project and will have to drag my old cargo trailer behind my Jeep to get the lumber home.

It’s been nearly two months now since the water stopped running and some of my neighbors have been dealing with it — without a solution like mine — for that long. I don’t know how they’re doing it.

The problem was in the paper about a week ago. The water company says it can’t dig until the water starts flowing again. When they do dig, it’ll be quite a mess since there’s only one way in and out on this road and the pipe runs right down the middle.

In the meantime, my neighbors are confident that the problem will be fixed for good. I’m not that optimistic. But I am prepared for next time.

—

April 2, 2017 Update: I got a call from a neighbor at 6:30 AM. He jubilantly announced that the water was back on. Although I’m thrilled that our little ordeal is over, I’m left wondering what I’m going to do with the 350 gallons of water in the tank on the back of my truck…

April 3, 2017 Update: I found a home for all that water! One of my neighbors needed to do a water change in his fish pond and was thrilled to get 350 gallons that he didn’t have to run from his tap.

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Fog & Sky Time-lapse

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Maria Langer

Probably the best time-lapse movie I’ve made so far.

A few weeks ago, we had an amazing day full of fog that drifted in and out for most of the day. It was a real joy to watch it from my home, mostly above the fog. But, of course, I didn’t have a camera set up for a time-lapse.

I set up my GoPro on the deck outside my bedroom using a clamp mount my brother got me for Christmas last year. I have a USB power battery replacement for my GoPros that ensure I never run out of power.

Early this past week, the forecast mentioned fog for several days in a row. So I got out one of my GoPro cameras, put in a blank mini SD card, connected it to a full-time power source, and got it going taking one shot every 10 seconds.

That was on Monday afternoon.

Tuesday was a nice day. No fog. Not even much in the way of clouds.

Wednesday was kind of dreary with some clouds coming and going, but nothing really interesting.

Thursday was the same.

Friday was a bit more interesting, with clouds moving around a bit. I figured I could turn that into a time-lapse in a pinch.

But Saturday! Oh, Saturday, November 13, 2016.

This scene out the window beside my desk was my first inkling that it might be a good time-lapse day.

I was sitting at my computer finishing up a blog post about my home automation system when I happened to glance outside. My “office” window faces northeast. I see the Columbia River Valley as it narrows between cliff faces. And that morning, as it was just getting light, I saw the clouds clinging to the side of the cliffs near my neighbor’s house.

The fog was back.

I was almost afraid to see if the time-lapse camera was still running, but when it got light enough to see, I went out on the deck and took a peek. It was. Glad I’d bought that 64GB mini SD card.

I let it run. I went about my day, doing odd jobs at home and running errands in town. The camera continued to run. The fog came and went, the clouds moved around, it became a beautiful day. The wind kicked up and the clouds seemed to fly by.

And the camera continued to record an image every 10 seconds. All day long and into the night.

This afternoon, I shut off the camera and brought the SD card inside. I found the images starting at 6 AM and ending at 6 PM. I ran them through a batch action in Photoshop that cropped them to HD video size. I fired up QuickTime 7 Pro, which I have just for time-lapse work, and compiled the 4320 images at 6 frames per second. The result was too slow. I tried again with 15 frames per second. Perfect!

The result is what you see below.

Got five minutes? Take a break and watch my time-lapse. View it in full screen if you can.

If you’re wondering about the music, which seems to go perfectly with this video, it’s by Paul Avgerinos: Dance of Life from the album Sky of Grace.

Life above the Clouds

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Maria Langer

Comment

One of those days when I’m so glad I made my home where I did.

Pictures just don’t do it justice. I know because I’ve been trying to take a good picture of what I’m seeing outside my window for the past hour and a half.

It started before dawn, when the early morning’s gray light revealed the thick cloud blanketing the Columbia River in the valley far below me. It just sat there for a while, apparently still, shrouding the homes and roads and orchards that normally fill my view. I went about my morning tasks — making coffee, writing in my journal, unloading the dishwasher — sneaking peaks outside to see if the view had changed. Every time I looked, it had. Then I begin to notice the movement of the clouds, rising and falling, drifting to the south west, drifting back to the north east. For the hundredth time in as many days, I regretted not setting up one of my GoPro cameras to capture a time lapse of the movement of the clouds.

I took pictures. Dozens of pictures. I used my phone and my good Nikon. I brought the pictures into my computer and fiddled with them, hoping I could get them to show off what I was seeing. For some reason, they always came up short.

One of the first photos I shot was a panorama. Click this image to load and view the whole thing.

At one point, I watched the cloud grow and climb and drift right up my driveway to swallow my home. And then, just as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

Directly across the river from my home, the local airport is in a bright fog. Like me, it’s quite a bit above the river level.

This zoomed in shot looking toward Wenatchee really shows off the autumn colors.

Even as I write this, now two hours after dawn, the view keeps changing. The bright sunlight plays on the autumn colors in the orchards and reflects bright white off farmhouses and shop buildings. I keep waiting for the fog to burn off, but instead it keeps drifting and rising and falling. Below the cloud, its a gray day, but above it, here at the Aerie, it’s bright and beautiful — almost springlike.

A 300mm lens really compresses the distance between a home about a quarter mile away and the city of Wenatchee five or six miles beyond it.

I’m a view person, as I’ve stated numerous times here and elsewhere. I bought this piece land because of the view and I designed my home to take advantage of it. I don’t need pictures on my walls; I have windows. It’s amazing to me how often the view out those windows varies — with changes of time or light or season or weather. It’s a new show every single day, and although some days are better than others — like this morning’s show — they’re almost always amazing.

The other day, a friend came by for dinner. As we were sitting at my breakfast bar, enjoying our meal, we couldn’t help but take in the view of the city as late afternoon turned to evening and then to night. My friend turned to me and said, “I’m so glad that you haven’t taken your view for granted.”

I immediately knew exactly what she meant. My last home, in Arizona, also had some nice views. In the beginning, when I first moved there, I used to like to watch the way the setting sun turned the mountains to the north an amazing shade of copper red. After a while, however, I noticed that I wasn’t looking quite as often, even though the view was spectacular most afternoons. I had begun to take the view for granted.

I hope that doesn’t happen here.

As I was finishing this up, I noticed that the fog was finally dissipating, being burned off by the warmth of the sun. I took a quick break to shoot video of what I saw — it’s zoomed in a little so the quality of the video isn’t very good. It does give you an idea of what I was seeing and just how beautiful can be here.

A quick video from the deck.

I’m very glad I decided to make my home here.

Helicopter Flight from Washington to Arizona, Day 1: Over the Mountains, IFR

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Maria Langer

A flexible flight plan, weather, and then smooth flying to someplace other than where I expected to be.

Posts in this series:
– Logistics and Flight Planning
– Day 1: Over the Mountains, IFR
– Day 2: Desert Heat and Familiar Terrain

It was overcast with a handful of low-level clouds as we headed southeast from Wenatchee Airport at about 11 AM on Monday morning. Not very promising weather for the first day of our trip south.

Leg 1: Wenatchee to Baker City

It looked pretty dreary when we left the airport heading southeast on Monday morning.

We left the Columbia River for the first time at the Gorge Amphitheater south of Quincy, WA. (We’d cross the twisting river two more times before leaving the area.) The air was really smooth and I found it difficult to believe that such high winds lay ahead on our planned route. But instead of taking that route, I headed toward Hermiston, which was closer to Pendleton than our original route would have taken us. I could always steer west again if I wanted to get back on that route.

The weather in Pendleton was moving northeast — per radar on my iPad — and it looked as if it might be gone by the time we got to Hermiston. I could check the weather at various points on my iPad as I flew and I did so, trying to decide what to do. But it wasn’t until we crossed over Benton City that I pretty much decided a more eastern route would be better; the winds at Benton City bounced us around in light turbulence that had Jeremy talking about the weather again. If a few bounces like that were bothering him, he’d either be sick or terrified when we hit the moderate turbulence forecast up ahead on our planned route. And although I was unlikely to be either, I still didn’t want a long day flying in turbulence. Been there, done that.

Fortunately, the weather that had been in Pendleton had moved off. I plotted a course for the airport there. We could clearly see rain in various places around us, but there was no lightning and the air was smooth. I talked to the tower at Pendleton and was cleared to cross over the field. The runways looked soaking wet. But what pleased me to no end was that I could clearly see the tops of the Green Mountains to the east. We’d have no trouble climbing them to follow the I-84 corridor.

Yes, IFR = I Follow Roads.

Our first leg was from Wenatchee to Baker City. This is an actual track log from ForeFlight.

The next hour or so was a mix of sun and clouds and even some light rain as I plotted the straightest route I could that kept us within sight of the freeway. I turned the helicopter’s nosecam on and off depending on how nice it looked outside. When we were flying into the sun, the pictures are generally crappy with bad exposures so I didn’t have the camera on much. I had a GoPro 3 Black up there that I could control from my phone. It was set up to record HD video with still images every 10 seconds. With a 64 GB mini SD card and USB power source, it would last the entire length of the trip. The aerial photos throughout this post are from that camera.

Meanwhile, Jeremy was shooting pictures almost nonstop whenever there was something interesting to see. I felt kind of bad that he had to shoot through the plexiglas, which I knew could be very reflective. But taking a door off would be uncomfortable and slow us down. And because we had so much junk in the back, there was no place to store it on the flight anyway. The only good thing is that the occasional rain showers we passed through sometimes cleaned the bugs off the front windows.

The folks at Baker Aircraft are serious about Halloween decorations. Photo by Jeremy.

Yes, the fridge at the Baker City FBO is completely covered with airplane panels. How cool is that? I’ll let you fly in to discover what happens when you open the door.

We stopped for fuel at Baker City, OR. (I always stop at Baker City, whether I’m driving or flying.) I parked to one side of the pumps and the fuel guy came out and fueled me up while Jeremy and I made a beeline for the bathrooms. I asked about the courtesy car and they handed over the keys. After paying for fuel, we drove into town for lunch. I always eat at Sumpter Junction, a great little restaurant with a huge model train that passes by the booths at one side of the restaurant and that day was no different. They have a great breakfast all day; I had chicken fried steak and eggs. Back at the FBO, I bought some snacks — Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookies and some almond chocolate biscotti — for the flight.

Leg 2: Baker City to Burley

Before leaving, I texted my friend and former editor Megg, who lives in Salt Lake City, telling her that we might be overnighting in the area and asking if she was available for dinner. I knew Bountiful Skypark from having landed there several years before, and figured we could grab an Uber to a hotel for the night. It’s always good to have a plan, even if the plan changes.

Then it was back in the air, heading southeast through Oregon along the I-84 corridor again. More sun and clouds and light rain. Some snow around us (but not on us). Lots of green. Very few bumps. I was very happy I’d made the route change.

Along the I-84 corridor east of Baker City.

A bit further along the road. The weather was constantly changing but never became an issue for flight.

The second leg of our flight, as recorded by ForeFlight.

After about an hour or so, we finally dropped out of the mountains into the flatlands around Boise. We were back in civilization again, with lots of airports to monitor and traffic to see and avoid. (I didn’t have the nosecam running because we were pointing into the sun and the images would have been awful anyway.) I steered us through the Caldwell and Nampa airspaces, making calls along the way, then steered us eastbound, south of the Boise Class B airspace, partly because it was the most direct route, even though it took us away from I-84, and partly because I just didn’t feel like talking to a controller. We monitored the frequency, though, and heard the planes coming and going.

Then it was back out into the mostly flat lava fields east of Boise. The sky had cleared considerably and although there were still isolated rain showers in the area, it was very pretty and pleasant flying weather.

We crossed over a few wind farms, including this one east of Boise. Jeremy got a great picture out the side window as we passed one of them. This is from the nosecam.

We fueled in Burley, ID. It’s another airport I’d stopped at before. I think it was back in 2008 when I was flying from Wenatchee, WA to Page, AZ with my wasband and another pilot. We’d overnighted there in a hotel not far from the airport. This time, we just fueled up as quickly as possible.

Leg 3: Burley to Salt Lake City

Megg had texted back with an invitation for us to spend the night at her house. I was eager to see her new home and spend more time with her so after conferring with Jeremy, I texted back that we’d try to get there before sunset. We were airborne minutes later.

The nosecam picked up this image as we climbed out of the airport at Burley, ID.

By this time, it was nearly 5 PM local time and sunset at Salt Lake would be about 6:30. I did not want to fly in that area in the dark. So I put the pedal to the metal (so to speak) and cut some corners along the way to shave off a few minutes of flight time.

The light was magnificent for photography so I turned on the nosecam and left it on for the remainder of the flight. I picked up more than a few nice images along the way. The air was still smooth and we had a bit of a tailwind that hurried us along. We broke from the freeway corridor when we entered the Salt Lake basin, mostly to shorten up the route and avoid other airports along the way. There was fresh snow on the mountains and parts of the lake that we flew over were smooth enough to reflect the sky.

Heading south along on I-84 toward Salt Lake City in late afternoon.

Although I cut some corners to save time, I was never very far from the freeway.

Dropping into the northeast corner of the Salt Lake Basin.

This is my favorite photo of the trip. I am such a sucker for reflections and will actually plan a route over water if it looks like the nosecam might get a few good shots.

I did have to talk to two towers along the way. The first was Ogden, which is north of Salt Lake City. To keep things simple, I asked for a transition along the I-15 freeway. The controller directed me to overfly one of the runways, basically cutting the corner and shortening up my flight path. He then handed me off to Hill Air Force Base tower, where I got clearance to continue my transition along I-15. Easy peasy.

Third leg of our trip, as recorded by ForeFlight.

We made remarkable time to Skypark. I tuned into the frequency, heard another plane in the pattern, and kept clear until I could see him. Although I probably could have darted across the runway to land on the ramp before he turned final, doing so would have had me looking right into the sun, making it difficult to see where I was going. So I joined the pattern in the downwind and followed him in to land.

We landed at Skypark about 20 minutes before sunset. Can you see the plane landing in front of us? He’s about halfway down the runway.

I taxied over to self-serve fuel and topped off the tanks while Jeremy and Penny stretched their legs. I texted Megg to let her know we’d arrived; she said she’d be with us in 30 minutes. Then I fired up the helicopter and repositioned it over to an end parking space near the taxiway, leaving enough space between me and the next tied down aircraft to prevent complaints.

At Salt Lake City

Zero-Mike-Lima, parked at Bountiful Skypark at sunset after a long day of flying.

We unloaded the helicopter and I locked it up for the night, leaving the GoPro on the nose right where it was. We waited for Megg by the main terminal building. The light in the mountains to the east was spectacular.

Megg came and we exchanged hugs. I introduced her to Jeremy. She tried to pet Penny, but Penny danced around as usual. We loaded our luggage into Megg’s car and headed off to pick up her son at Boy Scouts. I could not believe how much he’d grown! He was 13 now — hell, I remember when he was born! — as tall as me, and had ditched the glasses in favor of contact lenses. We all went out to dinner at Cafe Rio. Then it was back to Megg’s wonderful little house, which was originally built in the 1890s and fully modernized. While Jeremy worked with his photos on his laptop and Penny dodged and teased Megg’s three big dogs, Megg and I chatted about things going on with both of us. It was really great to see her and I urged her to stop by my place for a day or two on her way to the Seattle area for a visit with her dad in July.

Then, with Megg needing a very early start in the morning for a meeting and me feeling pretty tired from a long day at the controls, we split up and hit the sack. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillows.

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An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2003.

Tag Archives: Washington