Certain death in this part of Tampa??

A comment on the Sunrise post over on Tim's Tampa Taxi Shots blog kind of rubbed me the wrong way. The writer said a few seconds outside the car was certain death in this part of Tampa(not specified, but near downtown, Tampa Heights perhaps?) If he was referring to traffic, I stand corrected as traffic in some areas is pretty scary, but if he was referring to crime, I think it was a gross exaggeration spoken out of ignorance. Watch the news and much, if not most, of the violent crime is taking place these days in the suburbs. The gang activity is focused in Town and Country and out in West Hillsborough county. Some of the inner city neighborhoods, are not necessarily places I would casually stroll through after dark, but to fear stopping long enough to snap a few photos, my fiance and I do that all the time. I guess I would say that to venture into some of the housing projects at night would be a little uncomfortable, but on the streets around them, I've never seen a reason to be fearful. I was born in Tampa, and lived here off and on for much of my life. Most of the now "in" neighborhoods were scary places not that long ago. But times they are a changin'.

Ice, Ice Baby

My first flight upon reaching Alaska was conducted south of Cordova up into the Copper River valley. We flew up close and personal with a few glaciers that day. Above is Child's Glacier. On
the right side near the center you can see what's called the "Million Dollar Bridge." It was a railroad bridge built to haul copper out of the mountains to the port at Cordova and it's the end of the road out of Cordova now. It's a bridge to nowhere as the road ends on the northeast side of the bridge.


Below is a shot approaching Bering Glacier from the coast. The bay has quite a few bergs and bergy bits from calving of the glacier. For a Florida boy, it was hard to believe it was August, but the bugs on the windscreen reminded me of home.

Because 5x Just Isn't Always Enough

These are one reason I need a better camera. Taken at full optical zoom, we just couldn't get close enough to the little bugger. That is a sea otter, the namesake of the plane I fly. He/she was much cuter in person. Too bad the photos don't quite capture that.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

How can a truck be two-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, and all-wheel drive all at the same time you ask? Take a gander at this. There were a couple of these funky looking trucks around Cordova. Was this a reposession gone awry(well it was half-paid for) or maybe an all too literal divorce settlement(split everything down the middle)? Seeing one made you do a double take until you saw it in action. It seems that these are attached to float plane lifts and using the front end of a four-wheel drive truck made them turn sort of like a forklift, and more maneuverable. The real story isn't nearly as entertaining, but ingenious nonetheless.

It's happening again

No sooner do I get home and the blog goes on standby. I was going through my memory cards and I took over 600 photos. Whoa. Not all of them were keepers of course. And not all of them are of interest to anyone but me(all the glaciers kind of look the same unless you were there.) But still, I've grown to become quite the shutterbug. So much so that I am getting a new camera today. I still have the CoolPix for those spontaneous shots when I'm not lugging around the new one, but this will allow me to get some better shots from the air I hope. Soon, I'll be posting photos of Ice, Ice Baby, glaciers of course.

Cappy's flying high.

Finally made it back home from Alaska earlier this week. While I was gone I had read on the Seminole Heights Blog that Cappy's made it's grand opening. Last night my fiance and I finally had the opportunity to try it out. I have had pizza from most parts of the country, with quality ranging from a flavor orgy in your mouth, to inedible cardboard. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a pizza expert, but my tastebuds are well travelled in the pizza territories. Cappy's turned out to be one of the best pizza's I've had. Not quite the experience of a slice from a NY joint, but not far off. I will say that for total flavor, I personally prefer Stephanno's a few blocks north of Cappy's. But, if I want to go out for pizza Cappy's will be my destination. If we want to bring one home to eat during the game or a DVD, Stephanno's will get my business. The atmosphere at Cappy's was great, except it was a bit on the warm side when we were there. The service was impeccable. The pizza was hot, great pepperoni, and plenty of cheese. In many places I have had to order extra cheese to get enough for my liking, but Cappy's has the right amount on the standard pie. My fiance and I agreed though, that Cappy's crust on the NY Style has Stephanno's beat hands down. I'm not much of a crust consumer so I give more weight to the toppings/sauce. It's nice to have a cool sitdown pizza joint in Seminole Heights that serves beer. If you haven't yet I recommend you give them a try.

Room with a view.

Welcome to Cordova, AK. It's a small fishing village on Orca Inlet near Prince William Sound(Think Exxon Valdez). The town isn't on the road system, and they like it that way. You can get here by plane or by ferry. Alaska Airlines has scheduled service into the airport outside of town and many small floatplanes offer charter service to and from here as well. It's primary industry is fishing and from what I can tell sportsman coming to and from the many lodges in Southeast Alaska. My room at the Reluctant Fisherman has a great view of the harbor. The salmon are running, and I heard they are catching Silvers now, I might have to spring for some gear and try my luck.

I &hearts Alaska

What a welcome for my first visit to one of the last frontiers. After being in the clouds in and out of icing most of the way north of Victoria, BC, the sky started to open up not far from our destination. On final approach into Cordova, AK you pass over a ridge and nestled right near the top is a heart-shaped lake. Pretty nifty.

Can She Bake(r) a Cherry Pie Charming Billy

Everyone probably knows that Mt Rainier is a staple of the Seattle skyline, when you can see it. Living out on the Olympic Penninsula, however, for my fiance and I, Mount Baker came to symbolize Seattle as much as Rainier. It was almost always visible when we made the 2-2 1/2 hour trek into civilization. Coming down onto the Hood Canal Bridge a look to the Northeast and there was Mount Baker in all it's glory. So here's a little reminder of this place we both love so much.

Hmm, what business are these guys in again?

I wonder what some signs would look like in my neighborhood if these folks did them.

TARBUCKS - I know some people think that their coffee tastes like that
NDIGO COFFEE - phonetically, not too bad I guess
ICKO'S - probably wouldn't be so good for a restaurant's business to be named that.
HERRY's YESTERDAZE- not too bad if you saw it, but if you say it, pretty funny. Harry doesn't strike me as a guy into vintage clothing.

Any other funny ones you can think of?

Our Fellow Feathered Friends of the Sky

Every once in a while when I'm snapping pictures I don't realize just how good a shot I caught until later when I'm going through them. My camera is a point and shoot that is pocket friendly, but isn't the fastest so I often miss those fleeting moments. This one however was much better than I had planned. I just wanted to capture the two aspect of flight, machine and avian. What I caught was almost as if the goose was saying, "Oh yeah, I can fly too!" If you look closely I also captured the floatplane in flight in the background as well. I thought it was pretty cool, and lucky.

I stayed at the Marriott Courtyard next to Lake Union. It's a great hotel, pretty close to everything, and the view of the lake is quite nice. There are always float planes coming and going on the lake right across the street.



The park right across the street has quite a number of homeless folk. The climate here is pretty conducive to living outdoors.

Calling All Angels

Nothing like going back to the airport only to find the Blue Angels practicing for Seattle's Seafair. It was an awesome display. Only downside was the traffic as they closed down the major route across Lake Washington for several hours each day.
The above was taken after I-90 was reopened and it still took me the better part of an hour get get downtown, about 4 miles ahead.

Another perfect landing.

Touchdown in the Northwest, but going farther northwest still.

We landed in Seattle in the late afternoon, after a gorgeous flight over the northern Rockies and Cascades.




It seems even in the last year or so the summer haze over much of the US, particularly around major cities, has gotten noticably worse. It wasn't so bad though that Mount Rainier couldn't make an appearance to greet me on the ramp.



I had a few days where the connection here was unavailable so I am playing catch up yet again. Here in the land of glaciers, my connection has at times been glacially slow, if not down altogether.

I've Been Waiting for you Obi-Wan

While it's possible to fly over the Rockies in an unpressurized aircraft by sticking to lower altitudes and flying the passes, we flew airways with minimum altitudes that require the use of supplemental oxygen. Plus it makes a great photo op.

BFE

We left Des Moines bright and early and had planned on a stop in Rapid City, SD for fuel, but winds were favorable so we determined that we could make the trip to Seattle in two instead of three legs if we kept going a bit. Paraphrasing a lot it goes something like this. OK is there anything out there where we can get fuel? Well there's Miles City, MT. Never been there, but they have Jet-A. And if the winds keep up we can make it on into Seattle from there without stopping. Let's do it. A quick amendment request to ATC and a slight change of course and away we go. I've driven through some of these parts before and it's a long way between dots on the map.

We did pass over the Missouri River. That was quite pretty.

So on to Miles City. As you can see here It's a long way to anywhere else from here. Not that it's a bad thing mind you, it just is what it is. It was a little hazy, but we were pretty close before we even realized that what we were seeing was the town.
As is quite typical for this time of year they had been having a number of wildfires around here. I am sure that contributed some to the poor visibility. Miles City is one of a number of fields out west where firefighting aircraft stage. Today there were a few of the smaller "tankers" on the ramp waiting to go.

Eastern Montana has a lot of grasslands without a great deal of timber so these crop-duster type aircraft can be very effective.

I imagine they would be quite fun to fly.

They only come out at night

After a relatively uneventful flight from Hyannis, and a fuel stop in Toledo, OH. We get in rather late to Des Moines. We didn't land at the main airport there, but chose to land at the small airport to the north called Ankeny Regional. We touched down just before midnight as we taxied in there was an odd bird sitting on the ramp. We looked at each other and both said "What in the world is that?" There are definitely some strange looking craft that take to the air, and, by no means is this one the strangest, but it's probably the oddest looking one I've personally encountered thus far. Though, I must admit, it does bear a faint resemblance to the Twin Otter.

I think it was a C-23 Sherpa, and it's quite obvious that she was built to haul, not to win pageants. Sure enough while we were securing the plane and getting our luggage, up drives a cargo truck and the boxes go on board. It never ceases to amaze me these things that go on while most of us our asleep.


Whatever happened to Dave Attell's "Up All Night" show? Overnight air freight might have been a good topic to explore.

Blast from the Past

When we got to the airport we saw this beauty sitting across the ramp from our plane. She's a Douglas B-17 named "Sentimental Journey", and is part of the Commerative Air Force. She has led a full and very interesting life, which can be read in full here. Because she was built too late to see service in Europe she was transferred to the Pacific theatre for last few years of the war. She flew mapping duties throughout the Pacific, was an air-sea rescue aircraft, a mothership for nuclear weapons testing drones during the 1950's, and for over 18 years served in a different form of warfare. Flying thousands of sorties throughout the United States as a firefighting aircraft, she outperformed her designed useful life by several orders of magnitude. She was transferred to the Arizona wing of the Commerative Air Force and tours the country. Her schedule can be found here: Sentimental Journey
I got a quick snapshot of her doing a low pass as she was leaving the field.

Sentimental Journey she is indeed.

Stand By: Shotgun Blogging in Progress

What a week, I left Florida on Monday for Cape Cod. Left Hyannis on Tuesday. A fuel stop in Toldeo, then overnight in Des Moines. We had to fly a more southerly route due to severe weather in the upper Midwest. Gotta catch up with some things so I will be posting stuff to bring us up to date. Oh and believe it or not, I have wireless Internet access here in Cordova, AK. It's not the fastest, but believe me, I am not complaining.