Iphone images of Vegas

The 'love' show was amazing. The sound quality of the Beatles music was fantastic: my eyes leaked most of the show...

Trip to the Grand Canyon

We went on the Grand Canyon railway to the canyon, spent about 3.5 hrs there.

Walked along the rim being chased by a storm, me having left my waterproof in the RV!

Took some great pics (here are the iphone ones) and got robbed on the train by train robbers on the way back!

We were also entertained by some musicians on the train. A full day!

The plain photo is minutes from the canyon edge just to show the contrast...

Just saw this

All happening at Williams Arizona!

La Posada

A hotel in Winslow ARizona on the old route 66 and originally a railroad hotel.

Eagles fans may recall a line about standing on a corner, if not just take it easy...

As you can see it is an art museum as well. The Elk painting is by Tina Mion, one of the owners - and I bought a postcard so that's where I took the photo- not in the museum! Dead animals from shoots are usually stuck on the wall, but here it's given nice clean white sheets and a bed.

Outside in the garden a fish...

Petrified

Forest that is! (Arizona)

Some iphone pics...

The mural is from inside the petrified forest inn.

The sunset was a couple of days ago at the 'city of rocks' which are behind me in the picture, but those iphone shots didn't work.

Grommit gets the message...

Arriving at City of Rocks State park; we camped here overnight two nights ago.

Unusual lunch

At the adobe cafe- espresso and blues music live! With a shared spinach & feta omelette...

Mishap on the Road

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tyre is flat

On way to El Paso a car flagged us down. Turns out the offside trailer tyre had exploded - the guy saw it!

Then he couldn't start his car and we were going to use the RV coach battery (his was very poor and showed evidence of boiling over and corrosion, how he started it at all is a wonder?). Then a sheriff pulled up and he had jump leads!

To change the trailer tyre we used the RV blocks as the jack couldn't get under axle. In el paso now waiting at a tire shop (not a misspelling)

A : See Details(Google Map)

Hummingbirds & Quintus

We are camped in Guadalupe National Park - a few hundred yards of roads and 80 miles of trails - so not many visitors.

On a walk up to 'Devil's Hall' which followed a 'draw' or creek a long way, we saw a few hummingbirds. Very difficult to capture with a camera as they won't keep still. Here is a shot which was grainy due to using 30x optical zoom without a tripod; was leaning on a stick, but still... As it was grainy I stylised it into a watercolour effect using photoshop.

The same bird is pictured in the tree.

The other bird is a Quintus dumping water over Marfa hanger; they have 10 water tanks, no 11 including fin I guess! The pilot is either Andi (one of the designers) or Tilo, the manager of Schemp Hirth.

At Guadalupe NP

Here is a view painted by a guy called Clark Cox.

http://freepages.college-alumni.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kysor/clarkcox.html

Two more days at Marfa

Hi all, well we are about to leave Marfa after 3 great days flying. Three of the Germans have been here too - Andy, Tilo and Charlie, and are planning to stay for up to 2 weeks. Andy is the chief designer of the Quintus and Tilo is the current manager of Schempp Hirth.

Here's a shot of Tilo filling the Quintus - what a beautiful aircraft.

Yesterday I took a run down to Big Bend National Park. The countryside is daunting but the run is quite safe if you just hop from airfield to airfield. I had a B1 bomber pass straight underneath me - also daunting - but cleared me by 2000ft. It was too quick for me to get a photo.

On the way back there was a cloud street that ran 160km without needing to turn - great fun. Here is a shot of the old military airfield that was the base for the Sunship Game. You can see trees growing from the runways...

Evening view

From the hanger, Marfa Texas.

Carlsbad Caverns & Natural Arches NP

A few photos... The glacier is in Great Basin NP, the photo below it was taken in Arches NP at MOAB.

Marfa - home of the Sunship Game

Well after a week supporting the Aussie team at Uvalde it was finally time to get some more of my own flying in - the original plan was to fly from Uvalde to Marfa on the day of the closing ceremony - but it was rained out. So we drove.
Yesterday I got a nice flight at Marfa - which is now a commercial gliding operation run by a great guy called Burt Compton.

The airfield is now right next to a hydroponics tomato glasshouse complex which was recently destroyed by a hailstorm. The glass was meant to be hailproof but mother nature decided to test that definition by pounding it with tomato-sized hailstones. Over 14,000 panes of glass destroyed. Here's a shot showing the airfield and greenhouses.

There is some lovely scenery around - as an orientation flight I did a 500km triangle. The only real landing options are roads and airfields - everything else is just donga. The flight  I did was the same task done on the final day of the Nationals featured in the Sunship Game - but I did it clockwise instead of counterclockwise. Countryside is very green compared to what we have seen, but no agriculture apart from extensive beef farming.

Here is a shot of Marfa town - see if you can work out where the famous landing in-town occurred from the Sunship Game.

At Marfa Gliders

Here are the German team Captain, and an Austrain team member& German team member (they flew the quntuses in)- with Burt Compton who owns and runs Marfa Gliders.

This is a great area to fly in and has a nice town (Marfa) nearby. It's a very friendly setup and definitely worth a visit. Www.flygliders.com

The Quintus in the picture was one of two flown in yesterday from Uvalde.

The colourful critter is some sort of grasshopper...

Carlsbad Caverns

Very big cavern; a 1 mile walk down, and another 1 mile walk around another loop, and then either a 1mile walk uphill 800ft gain, back out, or take the elevator...

Here are a couple of pics.