Palmer Wind Storm

We've had one windy year in Palmer.  I don't think the winds this time were over 55 mph, which is not unusual in the winter, but is pretty strong for the fall.  The power was out for close to 20 hours.  Anchorage got hit a lot worse and had power outages for up to almost a week.

We had a tree down blocking the road, and smaller trees blocking both our driveways.

This one was pretty big - about 24 inches at the base.  It scraped a transformer and then lodged against the pole guy wire.  I'm not sure if the transformer was why the local power was out - it didn't look damaged.

Ants had gotten to the tree...  is "had gotten to" correct English?  Sounds OK to me.

I had to cut it into 5 parts so my tiny skid steer would pull it.

Jake did a good job hooking up chain to all the logs so I could drag them over to the woodpile.

Hanna showed up for the inspection tour :-)

End

Northbound Trip 2012 Part Three

Washington layover

Jake and I took a day to hang around Seattle.  I was surprised he'd never been there and was pretty sure (correctly) he would like it.

We had breakfast at my 'usual', the Soundview Cafe in the back of Pike's Market. Once a coworker and I were stuck by AK volcanoes in Seattle and another member of our party that I knew also liked the Soundview was waiting it out in Minneapolis.  I texted my guy in Minneapolis a photo of the Soundview cafe front door.  A few hours later I got a call... "I'll be at the airport in 3 hours to wait this out in Seattle with you guys".  We all had a great time for two days of volcano Alaska flight delays. :-)

Jake found a fellow traveler... quite a character.  That applies to both of them :-)

Then we took the ferry over to Bainbridge to visit my friend Jim, who gave us a nice driving tour and overpowered me to pay for lunch :-)

On the way back I had planned to visit the EMP (I've forgotten what it stands for - Experience Music Project ?) and the attached Sci-Fi museum, but had a sudden idea on the ferry... so I gave Jake the choice and we headed for the Underground Tour.  It was fun, but the jokes hadn't changed much from my original tour 30 years ago... :-)  Jake really enjoyed it. Well, I did too.  The tour guide was dressed like Rocky the Squirrel.

Then, since we were already in Pioneer square I was very happy to realize we were right next to Zeitgeist coffee which is great...  so a coffee break was in order!

End

Northbound Trip 2012 Part Two

 KPRB (Paso Robles, CA) to KOLM (Olympia, WA)

Day Three, Fly to Olympia

We launched hoping to get to Olympia but thinking it was probably too far for one day.  We landed at Red Bluff, Ca where they had the coolest upstairs airport view restaurant, then Roseburg, OR for gas and to check the weather. Roseburg's a real nice little town, the airport has a nice friendly FBO and we thought about staying, but a check of the weather led us to believe (correctly it turned out) that the weather was going to close in for a couple days so we pushed on.

We made it to Olympia, but apparently didn't take too many photos :-)

The FBO was great there (Glacier Aviation), but they didn't have tail tiedowns so Jake and I dragged the plane up on the grass and staked it down with our FlyTies, which are expensive, but we've used them a lot and they work great.  All we've tried them on is turf - I doubt they'd be too good in sand or beach gravel.  The FBO had really cheap rental cars too - only $25/day.

The tower controllers were very nice too.  They called me a couple miles out, said the wind had changed and did I just want to come straight in?  Heck yeah and thanks!

We toured the Evergreen State College campus the first day, then visited some friends where we dried out and Jake got a grudging cat fix from George the female feline.

Olympia was fun.  It drizzled a lot, but is very pretty.  I loved this bicycle growler carrier.

We stayed at the Governor Hotel, downtown with a view of the lake and Capitol and free parking.  It was just fine - easy to walk downtown and to the grocery store.

Jake liked the architecture...

And found some Art Deco details too :-)

end

Northbound Trip 2012 Part One

P08 (Coolidge, AZ) to PAAQ (Palmer, AK) 2012
We had a great time. 8 days and 26.5 hours in the air.

Here's our actual route, not too different from what we had "planned"  :-)

Right before we left, we noticed this RV that had a rough day - groundlooped.  Didn't get the wingtip or prop (surprise) but really tweaked the fuselage :-(

Day One. Fly to Paso Robles
Click here for Video to Blythe

Ready to Go






We flew to Blythe, CA and got gas. Uneventful other than I called the wrong airport in the pattern a couple times and got chastised by the FBO operator.  Jake got it on film so that's punishment enough.

Blythe



Then we went on to Paso Robles.  It was a little over three hours and I was ready for it to be over, but we wanted to get there. We had decided to land at Paso because of the coastal fog we encountered last time, and sure enough we would have been delayed on departure for hours if we'd stayed in Santa Maria or San Luis Obispo. It turned out to be a good choice.  Actual tie-downs, nice FBO people, not too expensive of a car - now our current preferred Central Coast base of Ops.  :-)


San Luis morning fog


I let a Glasair rattle me a bit on final into Paso - he had called descending to the pattern from a few miles out and 5000 feet.  I told Jake "This Bozo is going to come screaming down on top of us because no one with a Glasair seems to be able to slow down.", and offered to stay clear until he landed (knowing he was faster), but he said he was going to stay out of the way until I landed.  As I turned a tight base, he reported on base and I snapped at him "Hey I'm on base do you see me?" and he said he was a mile behind me.  A One Mile Base...  Hmmm. About 30 seconds later I'm about to flare and he goes around.  So either he was a lot closer than a mile or he was going over 120 MPH. Whatever.

We drove down to Los Alamos to visit the parents of friends I've known since college.  We wanted to visit the Mom since her health has been questionable, but she was asleep so the Dad and Jake entertained each other.  They're both a couple characters so it worked out.  I really like the Carrari's - they were both really good to me when I was in school and he is is a very hard working, self made and entertaining guy.

Day Two, Central Coast Visiting

We went up north of San Miguel to visit our Uncle Burt and Cousin Lousanna.  It was quick trip - they had to leave and we had dawdled in SLO a bit leaving.
 

We visited another of the Carrari's on our way back to Paso Robles, my friend Tina's big brother George.  Another very nice and very hard working Carrari.  He's visited us in Alaska but I hadn't seen him in almost 20 years.



We had dinner with our old friends the Orcutt-Clenards but apparently they don't warrant a photo anymore.  Old news, lol.

Breakfast in SLO on our way out of town.

end

Jake's Videos

I thought I'd put up links to some of Jake's videos.  He's called most of the trip from Palmer to AZ "PAAQ to F70" and the trip back "The Trip".  Neither Vimeo or YouTube are easy to search particularly since I'm never sure if he's going by "Jacob Fredrickson" or "SaveTheCroissants".

He makes great movies so check them out:

All Jake's Videos on YouTube
All Jake's Videos on Vimeo

My favorite: (non-flying) the Good and the Bad

Palmer, AK to Coolidge, AZ 2011 by YouTube episode:

Part One

Well, we're in Canada

Jake does not have a debilitating stutter

It's been a long time

The one where our tail wheel breaks

We accidentally fly over Burning Man  

San Luis Obispo

Finally reach F70
 
Season Two!

Lens flare and clumsy motion tracking  

Last leg and first voiceover  

end