Having made the FOD Walk at Boeing Field before, I missed it the next year but did it again this year. I saw a few of the local aircraft operating from the short runway while the long runway was closed for us. Since I was on the south end this year, I wasn’t as close to the runway as last time, but I still got a good view of the passing planes as they climbed out.
The place we were staying in while in Canmore was on the edge of the town but had a great view across the town towards some of the mountains. The early light was from behind us and on to the mountains themselves. First thing one morning, I woke up and looked outside and saw some gorgeous red light illuminating the rock faces. What a wonderful sight with which to start your day.
It was a wet and gloomy weekend morning up in Everett and so might not have been worth heading out. However, National Airlines was bringing a 747-400 into the Boeing facility and that was worth a trip. The plane emerged from the gloom as it came down the approach and, as it came across the threshold, the vortices could be seen streaming off the flaps. A grey jet on a gloomy day is always a tough one but I think this was definitely a result.
In the glade down near the river in Bloedel Reserve, there is a tree that is super gnarly looking. The center of it seems to have been broken apart and damaged over time but the tree still seems to be doing fine. It looks very different depending on the angle from which you look at it. I think this could be the sort of tree that someone would incorporate in a fairy tale!
No shock to any regular reader that I found a way to photograph another Avanti. Just some good fortune about when it showed up at Boeing Field and that the light was playing ball when it had been rainy for a good portion of the time. I was able to be there to catch it and would have loved to have been there for departure too, but you take what you can get.
During our trip to the UK, we met up with our friends Mark and Rosemary. They suggested we meet at Hinton Ampner in Hampshire. Being sensible people, we started out at the local pub for lunch before heading into the grounds of the estate. I didn’t know anything about Hinton Ampner but it was a delightful spot to explore. The grounds were really lovely to wander around. There were the more ornamental gardens near the house but there were paths around the estate which showed off just how lovely the rolling hills of Hampshire can be.
The house also has a café – of course it does – so we stopped off there to sample the goodies after strolling around the grounds. It was spring so the flowers were out in parts of the garden. There was also a local church in the estate since you wouldn’t want to have to go far if you are the local landowner!! What a lovely spot to spend some time and always great to catch up with good friends.
I was clearing out some old shots to try and clean up some hard drive space. As I ran through some of them, I found some shots I took at Seattle Tacoma International during a visit. We were heading out to a part of the airfield to look at where some future work may be undertaken. As we drove across the ramp, I did grab a few shots of the aircraft as they taxied around and also as some were departing. It is fun to shoot from a ramp as you get a very different perspective on things.
Earlier in the year, we made an afternoon visit to Wisley – the headquarters of the Royal Horticultural Society. I have posted about it previously but, this post is about some of the really cool looking plants that they have. That is what you would expect for a horticultural society, of course. Some of them are really fascinating looking plants so here are some shots.
During Seafair, the USN Growlers from Whidbey Island did a display earlier in the schedule. Once they were done, the jets headed home in midafternoon. They didn’t have a long trip home so getting back to base was probably a simple call. What made it better was that they undertook a section departure and the view from the tower was really cool. The tricky thing about a section departure from a photographic point of view is which plane to track. Which one looks dominant in the shot early on and which is dominant later in the pass? It changes but tracking is harder to switch. Small problem, I know, but a little tricky.
Last year, when we made our trip to Kelowna, we stopped en route for lunch at a town called Hope. It is a small town and surrounded by mountains which makes for quite a distinctive view. There is a large park in the center of the town and the place we had lunch faced this park. The town was used for some filming for the Rambo First Blood movie and, when I happened to see a clip of this recently, I recognized the location immediately. Apparently, the town has some statues of the actors, but we didn’t see those while we were there.
