I had a brief work trip to the Washington DC area. Our offices are in Alexandria VA and I was able to meet up with family for dinner on my first night there. I did get there a little earlier than our reservation and took a little time to stroll along the riverfront in Old Town. It has been a couple of years since I was last there and a lot longer since I lived close by. It is a lovely spot to hang out on a nice evening.
Our trip to the Canadian Rockies had us in the area around Banff. However, we had chosen to stay in the town of Canmore – a short distance away from Banff rather than in Banff itself. This proved to be a great decision. I’ll share some thoughts from Banff in another post, but it was a very busy and touristy place. Canmore was not immune to that, but it had a far more comfortable feel to it. We were staying within walking distance of everything in the town so could easily go exploring.
I include a few shots here of the town itself but there will be some more posts that include some specific elements of what we were doing while we were there from where we stayed to the wildlife we encountered. Definitely a nice spot to use as a base. A bit of a drive to get to some of the more famous parts but it worked well for us. Very accessible and plenty of good food options!
For the longest time, there have been efforts by the USAF to drawn down the A-10 force. Various things have held them back from doing this but now there is a pretty concerted effort to retire them. Units are closing down, and it does seem that the aircraft might no longer have a role in the order of battle. There are many fans of the A-10 including me and some will never accept it can be replaced while others will think its time has come. They were produced from the late 70s to the early 80s, so they are definitely old, even if parts of them are a lot newer like the wings.
What we like or think doesn’t matter. They seem to be going away. Consequently, when we were at Davis-Monthan during the Arizona trip, I was pleased to get to shoot a few of the jets working around the pattern there. I know my Harrier experiences this year have shown how wrong you can be about when you will ever see things again, but I figure the number of encounters I shall have with these jets will be limited. Even so, they are continuing to make new developments as Mark found on a follow up visit when he saw a new store mounted on one of the evaluation jets. The A-10 was a favorite of mine in my teens, and it will be a shame when they are all gone.
Once we had crossed the border into Canada, we traveled for a while before arriving at Radium Springs. Here we took a turn into the Kootenay National Park which also provides the main road up towards Banff. As we made the turn and took the entrance into the park, I was convinced that something was wrong. We were driving right at a cliff. Sure, there appeared to be a crack in the cliff but that surely couldn’t be the road. However, that is exactly what it was. The road ran through this tiny gap and into the valley beyond. It was quite a stunning way to enter a park!
Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson is well known as the storage location for hundreds/thousands of airframes that may either return to service or may provide spare parts for airframes still in service. Just outside the perimeter of the base are some privately owned facilities that also have a lot of old airframes. Whether they will provide parts to support operations somewhere or will ultimately just become scrap metal, I don’t know. One of these facilities has an extensive collection of S-2 airframes. They are lined up in rows and, as the evening light came in, they looked particularly interesting. A longer lens allowed some compression of the perspective for these aircraft and their bare metal picked up the light nicely. I imagine none of these will ever be flying again but I hope they survive for a long time.
While Mark and I were in Arizona, we heard about the potential of Harriers being at El Centro. We decided an additional leg to our trip was worth it and headed for California. As we came up to the base after a few hours of driving, we saw something rather unanticipated over the airfield. The USAF demonstration team, The Thunderbirds, were flying around over the field. It turns out that they had gone to El Centro to spend some time working with the Blue Angels that were still there for winter training.
This had us worried. If the teams were going to be flying, that would stop the other base operations, and our trip would have been futile. Fortunately, they landed and were going to spend the afternoon on the ground talking about whatever demonstration teams talk about. Operations would continue. We did get one flight with a Thunderbirds call sign, though. The C-17 that had come to support them headed off. It had a Thunderbird call sign and did try a sporty take off and climb out. I’m not sure whether everyone was really buying it though.
If you live in the UK, you probably aren’t aware of how fortunate you are to have the variety of places to walk that you do. Public rights of way are a feature of the UK that are not necessarily replicated in other countries. They provide the chance to walk in many places that would otherwise be out of bounds. Also, the woodlands that are accessible are a treat. We took a wander through Blackwood Forest while we were in the UK and Sam and Chris introduced it to us. We weren’t going to be taking a major hike based on time available and other things, but we did have a relaxing wander through the trees. We also had time to stop at the café in the forest, too, which may have eaten up some time while we ate up some good food!
For one of our recent stays in the UK, we rented an AirBnB in the Hampshire town of Stockbridge. I had driven through (or by) Stockbridge on countless occasions over the years but had never stopped to explore it. Turns out that was an oversight on my part as it is a really delightful little town. Plenty of interesting shops and eateries to explore. Also, doesn’t hurt to have a few pubs that are worth a visit too. We had an excellent time while staying there and here are a sample of some images of the town from our time there.
The Pacific Northwest is not short of trees (and many of those trees are not short!) but they are often pretty regular looking trees. We do have some more twisted looking specimens for sure, but the UK does seem to provide a selection of aged trees that have developed some amazing shapes to them. One such tree was in the grounds at Hinton Ampner. I have no idea how old it is and whether this is the norm for this type of tree, but I thought it looked fantastic so here it is getting its own post.
Luke AFB has some contractor operated jets that we were hoping to get a chance to shoot. The ATAC Mirage F1s did launch while we were there but, despite waiting for quite some time, they never returned. However, Top Aces launched their F-16A aircraft and we were more lucky with these guys. They did do as requested and recovered before we left. Contractor operations are usually with old jets of previous generations so it is hard for me to accept that early model F-16s are now sufficiently old to fit that model. How can that be? These ex-Israeli aircraft are still in their desert colors and it was nice to get a chance to shoot them.
