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Well, its beginning of February, and it feels like spring. We had a nice warm day this weekend, and i was thinking to myself i wish i had some plants out there soaking up the sun. the warm weather is here, just in time for our spring Olympics starting on Friday.
so, i went out to home depot on Sunday and got some seeds and starter pucks to grow seedlings in. im super excited. i haven’t ever planted anything from seeds. ill have to get some pictures of them growing. so far i got tomatoes, basil (wrong one for pesto apparently, anyone need a basil plant, i got 6 of them), lettuce, arugula, shallots, radishes and garlic started.
ohh, and i got 3 types of kale from naomi, which is super cool.
let the growing season begin!
So after taking butch out to go flying first, i wanted to go on an aerobatic flight, and naomi decided she would go up for a glider ride too.
so, naomi and my dad got in first to get towed, and i followed with the instructor giving me the aerobatic ride.
here are erik and naomi checking out the plane
naomi in the back seat
ready to take off
me getting into my chute
ohh yeah, im ready
lets get going
on the towline
on tow overhead
naomi and my dad landing while im still on tow. not much thermal activity in the winters, so short flights
high speed pass
and us landing
the five of us with the captain cook
so, first and foremost, let it be known that since i was participating in all these activities, the primary photographer of the day, was noa, who did very well, i must say. she defiantly captured the spirit of glider flying, and its especially nice to get some pictures of me in a glider for once.
so, i would have to say naomi definitelyenjoyed her ride. ask her yourself next time you see her, but after being somewhat intimidated by it initially, she had a great time.
as for myself, well. we released from our tow, and i flew some lazy circles around for a few minutes, since i had not been up in quite a while. then, i handed it over to the instructor, and right off the bat, he asked if we should fly inverted. heck yeah, i said. so, over we went. i had strapped myself in pretty well, but forgot to tighten my shoulder straps enough, so, immediately, i dropped an inch, and was hanging there, upside down, with all the rocks in the plane falling down to my head, staring straight down at the ground. it was awesome. we probably spent about 45 seconds inverted, then righted ourselves.
the rest of the flight was loops, hammerheads, spins and spirals. it was epic. i had done some of those maneuvers before, but never inverted and multiple loops. i had a great time. we finished it off with buzzing the airfield with a high speed pass, and came in for a landing. i just had a blast.
at some point within the next year, i need to start flying more again, and get my license, as coming up soon is the 50th anniversary of my grandfathers glider being built, and i need to fly it solo that year.
well, that about wraps it up for our arizona coverage!
we decided to go horseback riding over the holidays in arizona this year. there were 4 of us, and we decided to go one evening, so we made the call and booked it. well, the next morning, the weather had turned from nice and clear sunny day to overcast and windy! of course, the only other time we are planning on doing an outside event, the weather turns on us again (did the same when we visited carlota).
so anyways, we drove about 15 min from our house into the desert to a ghost town for tourists.
the corral
the 4 of us
riding in the desert, at the base of the superstitions
noa
erik
naomi
the cayote that followed us
my horse
locking erik and naomi up
we had a grand old time riding around for 2 hours. it really is the way to travel thru the desert. it makes you think, that during the wild west, this was the way everyone got around. you really did not go as far as we do these days, traveling around this way. i highly recommend it to anyone who visits arizona.
So my fathers best friend from childhood came to stay with us over the holidays this year. He had spent lots of time in airplanes, but never in a glider, so of course he had to go for a glider ride.
so we went to estralla sailport, our glider field about an hour from our house. its where our family glider also lives.
anyways,lets get into it
the plane sitting waiting to take off before my dad
previous plane taking off
my dad and butch
takeoff
off they go
the towplane returning
coming in for a landing
and successful flight
one of the high performance fiberglass gliders
HDR of glider sitting on the tarmac
So, over the Christmas holiday, I decided to visit carlota and bring noa along since she has never been to a mine before. now, arizona has 350 clear blue days a year. that leaves us with ohh, about 2 weeks of bad weather a year. we happened to pick one of those for our mine visit. but, of course, bad weather = better pictures for andrew, so it wasn’t all bad. and in the end, the worst thing that happened, the wind deciding to tear noa’s glasses off her face and fling them into the great yonder, turned out okay, because they were heroically rescued by my co-worker brock the following day a week later.
so, anywho, lets have a look
a HDR panorama of the pit
spare haul truck tires laying around
heres were we keep all the money, copper cathode ready to be shipped
the leach pad pano
loading a haul truck
picture of the pit from the lookout
the tail end of a blast – and the dust storm that was attacking us
so that was the tour! thanks again to brock for taking us around.
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