Category: Travel

Categories
Flying Rants Travel

Crappy Commercial Flights

I had the great displeasure of flying from Oakland to Seattle this past Friday, just after the new “liquids ban” was put in place for all commercial aviation. This change seems to have completely fubar’d the airports, leaving an overworked air system even more in disarray.

All told, I spent 7 hours in two airports for 5 hours of meetings in a remote office. I would like to say that the face to face time was worth it, but I have to question how useful travel is when things are as painful as they now are at major airports. Kudos

Kudos TSA, you once again have shown you are as ready for handling disaster as FEMA is. And that’s no compliment, I assure you.

Categories
General Photos Travel

Flying Over the North Part of the South Bay

Yesterday I took a short flight in a Robinson R22 helicopter over part of the Bay. It was pretty nifty to be flying again, this time courtesy of Mark P (thanks!). At around 800 feet above the ground and around 80 knots airspeed, the flight took me from San Carlos to Fremont and back again.

It was a cool way to see part of the area I thought I knew and get some photos in the process. You can see a selection of those photo’s in this album. Hopefully there will be more of these flights with interesting pictures in the future.

Categories
Rants Travel

Long Ride Up and Back, with Good Ski In-Between

There was good skiing to be had last weekend, but a lot of pain on the ride to and from Tahoe made it bittersweet.  It was the first time I’ve ever seen snow in Placerville, a town located at 1800 feet above sea level.  It’s rare to find snow that low in California, so out came the Caltrans chain crews and down goes the speed limit.

It took just over 7 hours to get to Tahoe that Friday evening.

On Saturday and Sunday there was a bit over an inch of new snow, really cold weather, and very light crowds.  Slopes were groomed and generally people free, so it made for some nice high speed skiing.  Great stuff.

But then the ride home turned ugly.  There was a serious accident on highway 50 involving a fatality, and since its only a 2 lane road (one lane for each direction) the whole road was shut down for about 3 hours.  This made the ride home take about 8 hours.

This episode really makes me want to learn to fly a plane.

Categories
Travel

Good Snow, Bad Snow

Another weekend and another two days spent skiing in Tahoe. This time around there was a good day with plenty of sun, but some patches of dirt showing through the snow, and a second day with snow flurries but with howling wind and low visability.

Given the constant high temps and low precip, this ski season may be a short one in the Sierra’s this year. Luckily, I have only two more visits to Heavenly to go before the season pass pays for itself.  Here’s to hoping the snow holds out.

Categories
Rants Travel

The snow trip that wasn't

Yesterday I got up before dawn, staggered around the house, and gathered up all of my skiing possessions in the hope of a day of snow induced bliss.  This sadly did not happen.

Quite the opposite happened, actually.

After it was all finished, the people going spent about 9 hours in transit to-and-from Tahoe only to be taught a recurring lesson: Ski resorts lie about their weather conditions.  It was raining and windy, and 50 F at the mountains, completely unsuitable for skiing.

I will wait for the weather situation to improve before trying to travel up to Tahoe again, that is for sure.