I Fly 4 Funn: June 2010

A nice thunderstorm rolled out of Jackson, Mississippi as I pulled into town. It was nice enough to say bye with a double rainbow.

Another beautiful sunset tonight at Lookout Mountain. Mom's been busy lately ! :^}

A couple of friends that are as close as brothers, are doing an item on Sr.s bucket list - traveling cross-country with his Son, Rick Jr.. They are in Sr.s little sport car/rag top. How long will they be gone,,,,,, NO ONE knows for sure,, not even them. Which is the beautiful part of doing it this way. Below is just one of the emails that they've sent. The reason I'm even posting this one, is because I just happen to have Yosemite on my bucket list. Except, they didn't take a glider, or rent one,,,which is what is on my list of things to do. Fly Yosemite ! ! Hope you enjoy this part of their journey like I did. Rick Jr. tells it like it is, and it's almost like being there.

Lets see where did I leave off... I think my last report had us stopping at Bryce Canyon Utah for the night...
So our (my) original plan had been to go down through Las Vegas and then up through Death Valley and north to Yosemite. Dad was getting a little anci to get to San Fran I guess and changed the route to what appeared as a straight route across nothingness of Nevada and that is (wonderfully) exactly what it was. First though, lets get out of Utah and we'll get to Nevada. Remember this is a sports car road trip so we don't take no stinkin' freeways. We found route 14 (a thin black line) going across Dixie National Forest. Turned out to be a curvy road climbing a mountain and it was MY turn to drive! Southern Utah has a nice mix of red canyon and volcano, so we're climbing this huge mountain going through lava fields and up until we came into an Aspen Forest then we got to a little snow. This was a great sporty drive. On the downhill side of the mountain, we came to a huge limestone bluff and stopped for a pee and a picture. I loved southern Utah, very pretty and they have some water. Then came Nevada.
Remember I said it looked like we were going to cross nothingness? It was, and it was spectacular. Spectacular desolation. Big mountains separated by big valleys where you can see the next 20 or 30 miles of road. Sometimes you can even see the next car you'll pass, but it might take you 50 or 60 miles to catch em. And catch 'em we did. My big regret for this day is that I didn't reset the trip computer this morning so I didn't have our avg. mph for the day but I'm estimating it at about 80. Dad fell asleep at on point so I went ahead and took her up to 100 for a stretch (until he woke up with a "Is that really necessary?")(Yes, imperative) When I say desolate I mean it. We stopped and got gas about twenty miles into Nevada and other that two small clusters of houses and one store, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but wide open space until one little town 40 miles from California. Dad took a turn driving for about 50 miles and got a little sleepy, so I got to do the cruise across Nevada. It was really impressive and we covered ground a lot faster than we could have on the interstate. At first I was cruising about 85 and would slow down a bit for on coming cars just in case. (It was 2 lane highway) Toward the end of the day we were cruising 95 and I was trying to convince dad that the car seemed to operated more efficiently at 5200 rpm. :) (It red lines at 9,000 for crying out loud). So any way we crossed a coupla hundred miles of nothingness by about 2:30 in the afternoon. As we got closer to the border we saw the highest mountain in Nevada (Boundary Peak), covered in snow. As soon as we crossed the border I had to relinquish control of the vehicle to Dad.
The roads got really sporty from here. Back to the curvy mountain stuff, even with some roller coaster up and downs in one stretch. No need for 6th gear here. We had entered California on a direct path for the east entrance of Yosemite National Park and we were taking hwy 120 through Tioga Pass. At one point there was snow falling and there was about three feet on the ground. Yosemite was beautiful, we stopped at a few places for photo ops. Heading west through the park we came to a sign that said San Fran to the right and Yosemite village to the left. Dad wanted to turn right! I made him turn left and down the winding mountain road we went. (I personally would have used one gear lower) Into Yosemite Valley and all of the big waterfalls, El Captain and a closer view of Half Dome. It was really breath taking. I ran the batteries down on both cameras. So we stayed until the sun went down and climbed back out of the valley and headed west for food and lodging. We'll we couldn't find any restaurants that were open so we had beef jerky for dinner and finally found a hotel for under $100 in Sonora, CA. Pretty spectacular day. 663 miles of beautiful.
That was our day for Friday. On Saturday we drove about 140 miles to San Fran to Dads sister Toni's house (and husband Tim). We'll hang here for a few days, do some laundry, wash and wax the car, site see, etc. From here we head north up the Pacific Coast Highway and more thin black lines.... See ya

Our pickin' group was here last night. I fixed bow tie goulash, salad, french bread, and Melinda made a killer strawberry shortcake dessert.
Below is George, Gary, Mary Susan, and Lori singing out on the deck at sunset.
Gary, Allen, Keith, Sparky, Dayle, and George playing some great music.

The Jammettes + visiting high school friends from Cullman,,Mel and Rae in the background. Thanks for driving over 3 hours to come and visit. Sorry for the mess

The sunset must have filled and order that I placed last week. Thank you Lord !

Love the shadow effect in this one

One of the better Lightning strikes that I've taken.

It was also a fly day, but with company in from outta town, and the pickin' group coming,, I was unable to fly. The top of the lift was said to be about 3 grand over. It was a late day also, the real lift started about 3pm. Cooking for approximately 20+ people is a different undertaking for me. Glad that Mel & Rachal was there to help out !