Fancy Flying

Last weekend Spike, Danny and I went up to The City and hung out on the beach watching the air show. The Blue Angels did some slick aerobatics...takes massive skill and cojones to play chicken with two jet fighters each traveling several hundred miles an hour. Blow up the pic for a better view. Notice all the boats...the bay was packed and Crissy Field beach was loaded with people...several hundred thousand watch the show every year.

Here's a spread maneuver. You really need a camera with a massive zoom lens to take great pix of these folks. They're awesome pilots...I reckon being in the Blue Angels would be a good item on a bloke's resume!

The Loneliest Road?

Last month I drove US 50 across Nevada. This highway is called "The Loneliest Road" and indeed it only passes through two towns in 250 miles between Ely and Fallon...Eureka and Austin, neither boasting more than about a thousand people. Still, it's by no means devoid of traffic. I ran some counts and generally encountered about one vehicle per mile. This was about twice as much traffic as I saw on highways on the edge of the Australian outback...not even back of Bourke. This is a typical scene on the highway...lots of mountains and lots of sagebrush. You alternate going over the mountains...they're oriented N-S and the road runs E-W...and racing over the sage flats in between the ranges.

Pinyon pines and juniper prevail in the mountains. The trees are cool and gnarly.

There are sand dunes along the highway too. Whoops! Uh, these particular dunes are not along US 50 but are on the beach in southern San Mateo county. They are actually only a few feet high. Blow up the pic and check out the wind ripples. There are big dunes along US 50 that are used by ORVs.