VACTION AMERICA 2010

Harrison checks out the flight controls.


Harrison, Elle, and Gigi preflight the airplane before the big flight to Rapid City South Dakota.
Ella is making sure that Harrison's seat is flight worthy. Ella and Harrison both carry reference airplane models to make sure all the necessary components are on board. We never did find the other wing.

Harrison checks out the controls in a moment of ecsasy. Yes, we pilos have such moments of ecsasy. Sometimes when we get out of a thunderstorm and sometimes when we land or get a
low fuel price.

Gigi is not impressed with the ecstasy of flight.

Cassie andWarick pose before the plane before departure. Their commens were overheard. Cassie: "Isn't your dad deathly sick. Are you sure he can make it?" Warick: "Don't worry, I'll be flying the plane." Cassie: "But who is going to land it?" Warick: "Harrison. He has been practicing all morning with his model. Besides, he has the great looking flight helmet."

Now all together with "Uncle Dave."

And now with Grandma Karen; obviously Ella is auditioning for an impromptu stage production. Nex time we will fly to Broadway.

Here he is, Warick, the pilot, flying us over the highlands of Wyoming. He took us over most of the state on the diagonal. Through the rills and bumps of light summer disturbances he carried us, maintaining altitude and heading.

Here are his hands on the conrols. Yes, he is actually flying us across Wyoming.

The new Garmin 530W shows Warick keeping us on track on the leg of OGD to RAP, Ogden to Rapid City.

Descending across the Black Hills with the Presidents of Mount Rushmore, just above the parking lot and visitors center.

George Washington, in granite, through the gap of an open cave. Once discovered, we all loved this view.

The four presidents in the late afternoon in the shadow of the afternoon after the walking tour.

The buffalo, Mr. Bison, they sort of growled and rumbled with their diaphragm;p the cows stayed nearby and the other bulls stayed away. Wow, what a strong musk you have!

Here is he proof Adi has a win. At the couner of the Bluebell Lodge, where we each had our own style of a Buffalo burger, are listed the names of the employees and voila and "Adi." They called Adi from out of the back kitchen and he happened to be a man, from Indonesia with a very long, hard to pronounce name, hence the very short nickname. Whew, Adi, you could have been just the run of the mill young woman with a replicated name.

Warick and Harrison before Sylvan Lake in the Black Hills, made famous by the film National Treasure II. We are about to do the hike around the lake ringed with interesting granite formations.

The rail passes througha tight spot with boulders stuck overhead.

Oh oh, Harrison has unfortunately discovered Nicholas Cage's booby trapped opening. Can he produce the city of gold?

At Oshkosh Harrison was a hit with his flight helmet "where did you get that hat?" For example, he was the only one invited into the large olive drab airplane in the background, the C-47 "Southern Cross." He stands before two very traditional airplanes, the DC-3 or C--47, celebrating its 75th anniversary and the piper cub, a likewise traditional airplane and the symbol of Alexandria Field N85, our plane's home base. He kept his model and visited the real black cross flying Fokker airplanes, which his model mimics.

Meanwhile back in Utah, the girls were havingtheir own good times. The shopping and the zoo are not pictured but here is Gigi putting on a floorshow; entertaining everyone.

Ella, after discussing the fine points of rodent production, enjoys the latest crop.

After departing Ogden, Jill picked us up and hosted a family get together. Here are the ladies in red, Jalyn, Maddie and Katie. Their men folk (escept for a very obvious boyfriend) were on the East Coast. They seem to be very happy without them.

The hostess with the mostessss't, dog that is. No, this is only a bizarre phtographic affect, Aggie is not a demonic.

East of Bryce Canyon, south of Caannonville late in the day. In the left background is Table Top Mesa, where Warick and I flew by a couple of years ago in aboiding thunderstorms.

Near Rainbow Point, looking for a new piece of turquoise. Actually, we have not been back to Bryce since our children were small. There were as many memories as there were discoveries.

At the south end, at Yovimpa Point, clothes blimped up in the south wind, scouting out a new homestead on the Grand Staircase. Karen did not push me off.

Sunset at Nauvoo: the two brothers, Joseph and Hyrum, ride together.

The last light of the sun catches the face of the Temple as two patrons depart.

The famous sunstones at the tope of the Temple; One of the originals is in the Smithsonian.

Holiness to the Lord.

The moonstones at the Northeast corner.

Joseph and Hyrum on the last ride toward the Temple.

Winginamen from the airport; it still exists and is still beautiful. Notice the fawn lounging on the berm

With my girls in the warm sun of home.

Under the chokecherry tree, the deer are harvestin my chokecherries. Actually, one morning after a run and in between swims, I ate the best chokecherries ever; big, black and very fine tasting. Well, someday I will get them into a bottle.

Sorry to our Eastern friends, this was the last picure we took on this vacation.

Thanks for all the good memories.

The Pilot

The Summer's Out of Reach

"Nobody on the road,
Nobody on the beach.
I feel it in the air,
The summer's out of reach..."

Quoting the words of Don Henley. It is time to mourn the passing of summer, but as a partial compensation we recount the wonderful occasions we had.

Having lost the first kilo of vaction weight and well on the way to the next, it is time to recall the gatherings, family and flights that put them there.

Family Highlights

Being met in LA by Warick, Cassie, Harrison, Elisabeth, Georgiana; vaction together. This is really wonderful to arrive from a long distance and meet people you love in new environs. It drives my interest in the interminable reunion dialor.
"I Love LA," Randy Newman's ambivalent hymn of life in LA booming happily as we walked into the new California-land section of Disneland with my great daughter (in law) and grandkids who like to hold my hand and make me feel blessed just to know them. In a few years I could really get into this grandfather thing. They act as if I am somebody special. I sure think they are.
Taking the "Soaring Over California" IMAX ride with Harrison. He was in his flight helmet and goggles and his hands were actually working throuttle and stick while I lifted my feet to keep them out of the Pacific Waves. That guy has talent. This year he put the plane kit together by himself.
Harrison, in the coming season, we must fly together again.
The hot sun on my back while we sat together between rides and the cool afternoon in the pool while we marveled about Gigi, the Every Ready Bunny swimmer that keeps going and going with a robotic technique that was fascinating and a bit unnerving. Swimming the deep end with Ella in tow clinging to my neck was great; the drive along Newport Beach at sunset, and a nice long discussion over pasta and grandchildren. Oh year, and Ella holding on, and on, on the big Ferris Wheel. Oh, Ella la Belle, when will we meet again? Flying out of LA with Warick, through the hot desert with a 50-80 mph tail wind, flying instruments in a dust storm and landing sweetly in Ogden, my new visiting airport.

Hosted in DC
Being picked up by Adi in Washington and being hosted at her house (nice place) the tour of the Senate and the Capital, does she know her way around or what? I now have a US Senate mug and a leather folder I use every day. Realizing one of the eight murals in the Capital rotunda is sited in Rotterdam! Seeing Adi's friends and being with them. Trying to eat a frozen custard, which turns from a frozen to a liquid state on your shirt in about three seconds. Alan Bean's moon paintings. Dinner with Adi's roommates, discussing men, marriage and spiritual decisions. Nice girls, each with such interesting jobs and talents. Flying Adi back and forth to Winginamen, no muss, noff, 1 hour 11 minutes each way.

In the Pool with the Jerseyites
For some moments those afternoons, nothing was lost by the move to Holland. We were all in the pool, the house was there, the wee girls were beginning to swim on their own and the sun was hot and we were cool. The fields were green the airfield green, the sky blue. In the fall days to come I will gaze upon you often...in the words of Don Henlen...

"But I can see you,

Your brown skin shining in the sun.

You got your hair combed back

And your sunglasses on, baby.

And I tell you my love for you will still be strong

After the boys of summer have gone."

Relaxed eating with Harland and Amy; there is always something good at their house, trying out the girls beds, recognizing such constancies as the North Star and Abby, applesauce and crackers (her future wedding breakfast and honeymoon meals and lunches and dinners). On the other hand, Abby gave me a hug and kiss which was kind of new to me, and I wasn't wearing applesauce. The engaging looks and the cute sayings of Grace that charm your heart and the watchful coaching of a mother that makes them fly right. Abby Dabby and Grace Ace...until we meet again.

Thar She Blows

With Belinda to Nantucket, the Whaling Musuem and lecture pretty good even by history teacher standards, the real deal, the collection of great scrimshaw in the museum and in the shop, the grey shake houses with hydrangeas blue and purple, the clam chowda' and lobsta' salad, and my favorite,--lounging dockside with Belin' in the warm air while the Cape Cod ferry slipped by as we slurped up melting ice cream cones. Belinda ordered the small cone and her rate of slurping was much less than the rate of melting. She finally gave up and watched the green mess drip drenchingly over the cone, dripping straight to the deck.

Biggest Family Regret

Leaving Ogden with Karen, flying behind the Wasatch Range, we look down to Provo, once home to Lynn and June and many family and personal adventures, how exciting it was to enter the valley cruising high beside Timpanogos Peak, scene of other adventures, and fall out of the sky over Provo, while our excitement gathered for a long and easy stay. Now, on this trip we had not even been there, not even stopped, no more quail or multicolored birds, no more evenings with the Rock Canyon breeze through the window; no more "well how ya doing my dear?", or "you kids, come and give me a hug." They're all gone now. We pass by, behind the mountains as if it all belonged to another life, and we did not want to be observed in our passing. I have grown used to my parents' new abode. The new picture I have of them in Egypt soothes my ancient sense of longing, but Karen's parents for whom I have lofty and loving regard have slipped so suddenly from us. Only last year Karen and I walked Provo in the sunshine of delight to be home from Europe, if just for a summery week or so. It was a happy day. I cannot forget that picture of Provo behind the mountin, and the uneasy pangs within. Is
it all so fragile and forgotten?

Friend Highlights

Jane and Alan at Oshkosh hostingus; getting us in on the inner workings.

Meeting with Bob Rigg after 28 years of now see. Lots of catching up.

Our old Clinton buds in true style hosted a party for us and invited all their great chums. I will never stop loving them.

Vacation Highlights

The delight of LA and its many communities; how the flora has diversified in all these year. Disneyland still works and it has been 34 years since I was there.

Page and Kanab and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon; The Ponderosas powerful, proud, the buffalo and turkey, Bright Angel waters clear and surging below, the glue green water of the Colorado through Angel's Window, the blue water of lower Powell by Lone Butte. Steep banks high over the tangled canyons and turguoise waters, and Rainbow Bridge by Navajo Mountain.

Now for the GORGIOUS Flying

The approach and landing at Osh' always a thrill, as dozens of planes are in the stream. "High wing you are number two to land," but there were a couple T28's that wanted to land too. "Land on the green dot!" Before thousands, who probably really don't care, it is still a thrill to land at the General Conference of aviation. Taking off is also a rush, such a fever, such a rush of intense activity. A hive of planes, procedures and radio traffic, and then, a few minutes later, a frequency change, and you are all on y our own with no other plane acrosee Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, kansas, and still you are alonge and quite. What a strange and sad change--until you feel the pull of the mountains and homelands of your loved ones.

Following a vertical, rotated Osprey O22 into LaJunta; I was on a long downwind and this two rotor vertical airplane was moving in to touchdown. Very unusual.

Chasing down a racing thunderstorm in the throat of the valley to Taos by the Sangre de Cristo Tange; checking mental dexterity after hours at 15,000--ahh, hypoxia.

Speeding descent over the mesa at Mormon Lake, forest fires to the left, swift through the pinyon canyons of layered ivory and maroon sandstone, aiming at the Sedona Aircraft carrier, runway 21, clipping to land--wing down, plane sideways, dumping altitude, while Karen nervously gathers her feet, having never before cross-countrolled to landing, and then settlling in to a nice landing in the wind. Sedone, check that box! Sunset on the cliff.

High over the desert, descending into LA, over the mountain, out of 13,000, turning in over John Wayne Airport for the run up to Seal Beach and then the instrument approach, bypassing Disneyland, it's restricted. Lowering to pattern altitude with Knotts Berry Farm gliding by on the right.

Launching out of Fullerton, with Warick, into a raging tailwind. Near Las Vegas we got up to 230 mph over the ground. 45 minutes in a dust storm on instruments, weird as the Okefenokee Swamp fire. Speaking of fires, a big one billowing out of west Great Salt Lake, right into a thunderstorm over the lake. We cheat right and land at Ogden in 37 mpg gust, but a simple landing.

Lake Powell, you know the drill, over Boulder Mountain, Bullfrom, swooping around Rainbow Bridge and a lovely morning landing at Page on the gem of an airport, after slipping by the dam and Colorado channel, in lining up for the downwind on runway 33. Another check!

"Over there is Monument Valley." "Is there any reason we an't go over there?" We came in over the visitors center at 150 knots down low, below the tops of the buttes, looping around the right mitten and then around the left mitten, then off north through the needles, banking out right to the East, to the Rockies, which were mild, beautiful and high.

In the late sun over the Mississippi for another set up swoops and banks around the Temple at Nauvoo and our ancestral homesites.

Descending across the nose of a climbing C5 over Wright Patterson, I don't think the controller had it on his screen yet. She banked right, I swung left and we ended up parallel.

IFR work at Allentown, a morning hop to the beach at Ocean City, with the parked P51 "Bald Eagle." Hnnn, it must be mine. Best body surfing in years, what's that about a hurricane? Walking back with the drone of a B17 in the air? (air show day before) back high over the Delaware and broken clouds, spiraling descent over Alexandria to landing, Sky King, okay, Sky asset manager. 60 hours, coast to coast to coast, 7 instrument approaches, over two hours in clouds, and dust.

Across the Might Miss, across the Mighty MO,

Over the Rockies, and canyons of Colorado

Over the beach, across the plains

Through the deserts, and mountain rains

I flew through the cloud and blue

On wings of my family fair and true

In moments so longed for, moments so rare

I am still there, flying, somewhere.

"Nobody on the road,

Nobody ont he beach.

I feel it in the air,

The summer's out of reach.

...But I can see you,

Your brown skin shining in the sun.

I see you walking real slow and you're

Smiling at everyone."

Dad

Daily Views

Today it rained. Nothing unusual in the Netherlands. Rather depressing sometimes. I have felt moments of discouragement and depression while we have been here and mission the association with my family members. Our lifestyles in NJ was a wonderful time. I think about them often.

But this morning I took your dad to work. We listened to some older music that brought back good memories. After dropping him off I returned to our home, but along the way I had some wonderful experiences.

While driving along one of the canal roads there was a beautiful, male swan all puffed up in his glorious plumage swimming peacefully along. I know that it was male because 30 feet further on was the female swan in her nest with two cygnets. They were right next to the road and she was feeding them.

About a kilometer further the traffic slowed down unexpectedly. Why? There were two ducks walking across the road. One large one at the front of 8 little ones with the second on herding behind. They crossed the medium into the oncoming traffic, slowing them, I passed them and watched in the mirror as they crossed the medium again on their way back to the canal.

There is a children's park close by "Plaswijck" that has a playground, rides and a small lake. On the lake are boats that are paddled around that seat four. What makes them interesting is that they are in the shape of swans. They were all lined up like sentinels waiting for their next visitors. Along the shore were beautiful, tall, yellow iris-like flowers. Lilac bushes all around with their purple and white blossoms. All this is accomanied by the lush green of trees and grass.

I realize that it is the simple things each day that makes our time here worth it. We have made wonderful friends who we enjoy, but just looking out our back doors andwatching two little blue birds flying back and forth from the bird house bringing food to their babies is peaceful and theraputic.

I will always miss my children and grandchildren. But I know that soon we will see them and enjoy them once again. Until then I will Skype as often as you all will let me. But until we are all close by each other again I will continue to enjoy all the simple things that the Lord has given me each and every day.

Return to Germany

DORNHOLZHAUSEN

David Pond

March 2009
We returned the same way familiar to us
To Bad Homburg vor der Taunus
The roads have been changed, we figured
Rearranged and reconfigured
The old white tower can still be seen
But the trees are new on that field of green.
On the face of buildings, the same color stone
But with new name alone, and with trees grown.
The kindergarten is yet colorful, ready for play
Traffic winds past the corner in the same old way
Dornholzhausen, clustered before the mountain meadow
Still feels the passing of sun and shadow.
I looked around to see the fair ones
That once clustered about me,
Their bright blond hair, their happy blue eyes
Still loving their father.
Haven taken them through foreign skies
I see the walks their happy feet walked
And the rooms in which they happy slept and happy talked.
Whenever I wander vor der Taunus
I want those with love bound to us
Dornholzhausen kinder of bright and blonde and blue
Though the years be reeling, I am still there, happy with you.

We had a wonderful time driving through Frankfurt, Bad Hamburg and Dornholzhausen. Wonderful memories were brought to mind. Thank you, kids, for giving us wonderful times as a family. I know that these places gave each one of you mixed emotions and feelings, but we as a family were still together and we could accomplish anything together.

We then drove up the Rhine and stopped for lunch. I hope that each of you are a little jealous of those delicious desserts. Perhaps the next time we can all do it together again sometime.

Applestrudel-on-the-Rhine

Raspberries anyone?