It was the kind of day that reminds us
why we endure 9 months of cold, drippy, gray skies. The kind of day
where everything, even the people, have a bright glow. The leaves
shimmer with the faintest tinge of gold and red. The sky is
story-book blue and the air is the perfect temperature for shorts and
T-shirsts. Not too hot, not too cool. The Willamette valley is so
incredibly beautiful, you wonder how heaven could be any
better.
Airplane people were gathered at
Dietz Airpark that morning for the annual Experimental Aircraft Association
(EAA) Chapter 105 Poker Run. Jenny Hickman was serving up breakfast
and handing out the first card. I was disappointed to learn that
Jenny would not be flying with us that day and I would miss her
smiling face at the stops along the way, but selfishly, I was glad
because she is such a great cook and so had time to bake cinnamon
rolls and lay out our delicious breakfast spread, and would be
putting together our BBQ dinner that night. After breakfast and a nice visit with
the folks gathered, we bumpity-bump rolled down the Dietz grass strip
and popped up in to the clear-blue-sky. WEEEE! I said, then added,
don't run over the Cub in front of us.
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Breakfast at Deitz Air Park |
The poker run stops took us up and down
the Willamette valley, to
Lebanon, where dusty fields turn in to the
dense, green foothills of the Cascades, then to
Independence, all
spread out flat in the middle of farmland. We popped over the Coast
Range for a stop at Tillmooooo-k, and quick look at the air museum. I
am astonished every time I see the hidden
treasure trove of vintage aircraft there. Leaving Tillamook, we gained altitude over Nehalem,
then flew up and over the rocky bluffs of Neakanie mountain, with
its tree-less cliffs hanging out over the sea. Roy turned the plane
on its wing so I could look straight down and the foamy, sparkly
deep blue sea splashing up on the rocks. More WEEEE! We talked to
Randall Henderson who was flying just off our port side, as we descended to Seaside for our lunch stop. The kind folks at
Seaside Air-park put on a fantastic BBQ lunch for us. Finally, we went to
Scappose, where bunched up hills slope down to the gray-blue Columbia
river.
The last stop of the poker run was at
Twin Oaks, where Chef Jenny was waiting with pulled pork and BBQ
chicken dinner. I love that gal! I was standing in the dinner line,
chatting with someone about my favorite topic – Sailboats (ha – I
bet you thought I was going to say "Roy" or "Airplanes"),
when Diane Van Grunsven, standing in line behind me said :"You
have a sailboat? I've always wanted to go sailing. It sounds like so
much fun!" So naturally, I invited her to go sailing with us the
following day up on Orcas. Roy and I were surprised and delighted
that she and Dick accepted our invitation.
Dick and Diane met us at the
Eastsound airport on Orcas the following morning. And it was ANOTHER glorious
day. The trees have a bit more color to them up there, and the air is
crisper. It is also clearer, since the sky is free of dust from the
harvest. The four of us piled in to the little 1984 Honda Civic we
keep as an airport car, and went to the
New Leaf cafe at the Outlook Inn for breakfast. It was not the same as Jenny's breakfast, but we
couldn't complain (the food there is actually quite wonderful). After
breakfast, we drove out to
Deer Harbor where I fairly danced down the
dock in anticipation of our day on the water.
Roy and I tossed off then lines, and in
no time at all, we were away, heading out on sparkling water, my
heart racing as we opened the sails to a perfect 10knt breeze. Dick
accepted my invitation to take the helm. Gliders are his passion, and
a sailboat is just a glider on end. It sits in two mediums, but the
principles are the same. Dick has always struck me as a serious
fellow. I have never heard any words to come out of his mouth that
were not absolutely relevant and well thought out. I have also never
seen him smile. I'm sure he does, and I think he has a sense of
humor, I've just never seen it. At least, not until that day. I
showed Dick how to sail by the tell-tales on the jib, and he
understood immediately how they belied the flow of wind across the
sail. He lined the tell-tails up, TQ heeled just slightly and dug her
shoulder in (I imagine she smiles when this happens) and the GPS
showed 7.5 knts SOG. WEEEE again, and Dick had a HUGE grin on his
face. Diane was also smiling and I was so happy she was having a nice
time for her first sailboat outing.
We sailed past little Fawn island, at
the entrance to Deer Harbor, then headed south between San Juan
Island, and Jone Island. As we came around the back side of Jones
Island, we sailed in to a no-wind zone in the shadow of the island.
The sails flapped and Roy offered that we could turn on the iron
Genny and motor out of it. Dick waved his hand, "No, no, its
fine, the wind is just out there and it'll be here soon," he
said. He explained how the wind moves in columns across the water,
and how it would come down off the north side of San Juan Island, off
our port side, and slide across, then get pushed up by Jones island.
We were in the area underneath, where the column was being pushed up.
I knew, from my racing experience, how the wind moves across the
water, and how it is effected by land masses, but had not thought
about it quite like that. I asked about how gliders maintain forward
momentum, and Dick explained about how they surf on vertical columns
of air.
I recalled a morning earlier this
spring when I was driving across the I-5 bridge and saw horizontal
columns of wind slicing down the river, each making a distinct
pattern of ripples, with calm strips in between, and I thought about
how, when we are racing, we move from one of these slices to the
next. I have seen these ripples on the water a million times, and
called out "Lift!" to the helmsman, but listening to Dicks
words, my head filled with sailboats, crisp white sails, and
airplanes, I saw the columns as part of a greater pattern, part of a
whole.
I pictured the columns of wind we flew
on this summer from the valley
to the sparkling water of the San Juan islands, where we sailed across glass and bounced in the waves past dolphins and sea lions. We flew all the way to Arkansas and Tennessee on a tailwind across mountains, and vertical columns of forest fires, and past thunderheads to the mid-west, to a lake that felt as large as an inland sea.The plane connected us to the water, and the water to the wind.
Watching Dick and Dianes smiling faces
I saw a larger connection - the people we shared our experiences with. A
slideshow of smiles passed through my head – Kitty swabbing
the decks as we crossed the straights on TQ that spring, Carls
determined look as he flew by our boat in his J-36, Jacob getting his
first taste of sailing, Cute 10 year old Gabby sitting in the cockpit
of the Roys plane, grinning ear to ear, Jenny's smiling face serving
up cinnamon rolls, Sierra snuggled in the back of Tucks Stinson, The
sunset in Katies eyes as we watched Orcas swim by, and so many more,
too numerous to list, and each one a jewel.
The airplane and the boat connected us to our our family and friends in a most amazing way. From the Willamette valley, to the San Juan islands, Arkansas and Tennessee, each person we met, every smile we shared gave us a lift and brought us joy. The airplane and the sailboat were the mechanism by which we traveled, but the people we shared the experiences with were what gave us momentum.Without
the people, without their smiles and joy, in the
plane or on the boat, we would always be in the shadow of the island,
waiting for the breeze to blow. Dick and Diane - and all of our wonderful, amazing friends and our most precious family - Thank you all! Lets do it again next year!!