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Posted By:
Hal Brown
Date Posted:
Dec 31, 2011
Description:
A nice dawn cleared the last known obstacle for an easy ride home. It was time to take N815PR back to where she started. Paul Simon’s song was playing in my head as a cautionary note:
Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
God only knows
God makes his plan
The information's unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin' away
Maybe Pia and I weren’t the only ones slip slidin’ away. Imagine the magic it would be if an airplane could be fitted with an extra special sensory device (ESSD) to see the highways men below were slipping away on! What a revelation that would be!
Oh, wait! Pia is already set up for that. All it takes is a little imagination in the cockpit.
On a quick cab ride to the airport a decision to be made: which highway to follow. With a transponder that was mostly inoperative, I decided not to bother the military controllers along the coast with my problems. Better to take the unmonitored inland route. Besides, there might be something new to see. With every square mile having its own story, there is never a dull flight with or without ESSD.
Date Taken:
Dec 31, 2011
Place Taken:
Perdido Bay, AL
Owner:
Dan Nickens
File Name:
Back_Through_the_Bayou.jpg - Photo HTML
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Category:
493, Travails of Pia Romeo
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Read what others had to say:
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Just west of the Saufley NOLF there was some surprising terrain. Now what’s the story behind the many mounds in the marsh? What man-made plan does that serve?
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Marsh Mounds 1
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Mining tailings? Marsh restoration? I circled multiple times to try and figure it out.
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Marsh Mounds 2
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The work of a geomorphic artist? Well, maybe. There was a crew working on a nearby berm. They had shovels and what looked to be some potted plants. Potted plants? Out in the middle of nowhere? Hmmmm….maybe it’s a story they don’t want told? Just in case, I stopped circling and started flying right on outta there.
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Marsh Mounds 3
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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A pipefitters dream in the middle of a swamp? Who decided to put a plant in the middle of a coastal swamp? Maybe it was because it is accessible by barge. Maybe the spot had plenty of water for a thirsty process. Maybe it was to keep the stinky process away from neighbors with sensitive noses. Maybe the middle of the swamp is the perfect place for it.
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Piping Maze
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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A local grain collector was surrounded by trailers full of produce. Whose table will be filled from this bin?
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Farm Bin
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Some Big World jets were parked for maintenance at a little country airport. Now, who would have picked the Crestview, Florida for a major jet maintenance facility? Maybe the rent was low? Maybe there was a lot of talent retired from the nearby military complexes? Maybe the owner’s father-in-law had a spare hangar? Maybe some local politician offered tax free parking in exchange for a campaign contribution? Maybe all of the above are true.
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Plane Parking
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The floor of an old mine sat idly washing away. Why was it idle? Didn’t somebody need some nice yellow sand? Maybe the sand ended up under a road. Maybe they don’t need any more roads around these parts. Maybe the building recession has curbed the demand for yellow sand. Maybe red sand is all the new rage. Maybe the owner died in a flaming car wreck after being run over by a dump truck.
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Mine Streams
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The farmer had to work around the wet spots. The wet spots are typical of karst topography with differential solution of underlying limestone. Why did the rocks pick these spots to be dissolve? What minute weakness was inherent in the formation built from the bodies of countless small calcareous shells?
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Field Border
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The boat ramp was closed for business for the duration of the drought. What about the children that used to play in the cool water during the summer? Are they now stuck inside by their computers? Will their childhood be marred by such imprisonment? Will their parents be driven crazy by incessant questioning? (E.g. “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do. When can we get a new video game?”)
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Dry Ramp
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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There were still a few areas you could float a boat….a row boat. Or a boy’s sail boat. Maybe it’s a great place to play when the big boys’ boats can’t run you over.
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Damp Spots
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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After such a dry spell, it was exciting to spot a SeaRey beaching opportunity on the still wet Apalachicola River. Of course there were many questions that would be answered by stopping. Are there any logs floating in the current? Is there a gust of wind waiting to bounce Pia back into the air? Is a giant alligator gar placidly swimming in the SeaRey’s path, just waiting to be startled up into our flight path?
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Beaching Opportunity
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Shallow water beside the sandy bar made for a great parking place. Now, where are the water moccasins hiding out today?
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Easily Aground
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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There is nothing quite so relaxing as cool water on your feet with the sound of gentle waves lapping against the hull (after verifying there are no more water moccasins lurking nearby). Why aren’t there any people out on the river? Do all the good people of Bountstown work all week long? Were they all scared off by the snakes?
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Quiet Setting
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The lakes are not the only water bodies running out of water. What will become of the river when it runs dry?
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Ankle Deep
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Out in the thick pine forests, some of the less populated tree farms looked like pin cushions from the air. Maybe they look pretty dull to a lumberjack after a long day of cutting on the ground. Getting really close, as in the case of an unexpected landing opportunity, they might look a lot thicker.
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Piney Pins
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Not much was left of the little pond in the woods. Is there not a Thoreau to write of its vanishing virtues?
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Forest Pond
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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A lot of water flows out of this hole in Florida’s limestone bedrock: about 250 million gallons per day (more than 17,000 gallons per minute). What smart manatee first figured out that the water was a warm 72F all winter long?
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Crowded Spring
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Sea cows grazing on fields of aquaculture seem the picture of aquatic calm. But what of their stories of chance encounters with massive floating creatures and their whirling steel teeth? Can anyone offer advice on how to avoid the marauding denizens of the surface that appear suddenly and leave gore and mayhem below in their wake?
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Wet Pasture
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Spring water makes for a Coke bottle colored river. The crystal clear river provided a good business for the former owner of its shores. To keep others out, Edward Ball put a fence across it. His neighbors and fellow users of the waterway complained. Then they sued to make him take it down. The State of Florida joined forces with them against Ed’s fence. A Florida court decided the little river was so shallow as to be non-navigable, so a fence was not really a barrier at all. But what about the glass bottom boats cruising through the protected waters on the upstream side? Well, that’s only because Mr. Ball constructed channels for them. Mr. Ball died and left the river to the state as a park. Now the State of Florida maintains the fence against the neighbors.<br /><br />The U.S. Supreme Court has a different standard for navigable waters: regulatory jurisdiction reaches far up any little creek attached to a body of water that a boat might have used once, even if it was during Noah’s flood. One poor janitor found this out when he emptied wastewater flooding the nursing home into a nearby gully. He said he didn’t know that the gully was connected to a stream which connects to Rock Creek (which connects to the Potomac River). The judge said he was guilty of polluting a navigable waterway. The janitor is now a convicted felon.<br /><br />Is the Wakulla River navigable by SeaRey? Is there no one to test the limits of the court’s reasoning and of the State’s changeable contention? Ha! Those answers will remain unanswered as rightly protected by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.<br />
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Clear Run
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The boundary between gulf and piney woods is an irregular sandy salt marsh. How many canoes have raced through the shallow waters seeking safety in the face of a monstrous storms spinning in from the Gulf? How many original occupants were washed away in hurricanes?
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Boundary Condition
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The sea seemed bound to the land by streams of stitches.
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Sea Stitches
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Bull-dozed (Not stitched together). The St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge uses impoundments to control plant growth with saltwater pumping and burning to remove trees. Herbicides are used to control cattail growth. The stated objective is to give birds a perfect home. Do birds actually prefer artificial environments the way humans do a house? Maybe there is hope for an increase in the popularity of concrete bird baths among the wild birds.
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ManMade Marsh
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Someone needed a road through the marsh. Someone put a lot of effort into building in. It looks like a government project. Maybe it was an Audubon project (though the thought of Audubon running a bulldozer into the marsh seems uncharacteristically artificial).
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Road Runs Through It
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Pia just loved running through the low loops.
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Flat Loops
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The last bit of the gulf before the land wins. It looked like the perfect place for an illegal moonshine still. Back during prohibition, there might have been one here. Was it economics or the Feds that ran them off? Or maybe they were killed by their own hooch?
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Last Salt Marsh
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Another pulp plant pond provided a showcase for chemical suds. It also reminded me of the faint odor of wood pulp encountered at the Perry airport (40J) after 4 hours of flight (covering 270 miles at an average of 68 mph. The camera logged 286 pictures, or slightly more than 1 per mile. One last short, easy run was all that was left before Pia got me home.
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Wood Mists
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Some color in the woods looked spectacular from overhead. Sitting in a pickup truck looking out over the field, however, some rancher was not pleased at all. The yellow weed is bad for his cows.
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Yellow Spots
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The cypress heads were clearly marked by sandy lines. There were plenty of good arguments among the scientists and naturalists about the relative “value” of the rounded woody heads. Some swamp lovers who waded through the small, isolated bio-communities raved about the diversity of life housed within. Instead of pointing to the snakes, frogs, and mosquitoes, they tried to argue that the perennially wet areas were great areas for aquifer recharge. “That makes it important to all water drinkers (not just nature lovers).” Unfortunately the geologists looking at them found an underlying clay layer of low permeability preventing any water from getting to the aquifer. Not to confuse the argument with the facts, the Cypress Heads lovers still praise their utility as conduits for our drinking water. Maybe they are drinking swamp water.
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Outlining Cypressheads
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Is this what the drought has wrought? A ghostly gathering of trees?
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Tree Ghosts
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Drought level in the Suwannee River increases the visibility of its water by reducing tannin levels from adjoining swamps. When the river is like this, a father and his young sons can explore the sandy bottom searching for pre-historic fossils. Who know what curiosity might be peaked by a kid’s chance discoveries of an old mastodon’s bones lying on a river bottom?
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Suwanee Shallows
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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On the banks of the Suwannee River there was once a tire swing. The old folks would bring the grandkids out to the river and sit on the bank, watching as they sailed from shore to river. Then, one day, the rope, rotten from long service, gave way. The tire and its occupant crashed into the black waters of the river. The young child struggled wildly to get free from the sinking swing seat. In a mad rush the old folks jumped in. After a frantic few moments of terror, it was over. The grandfather, grandmother and child sat on the river and cried in relief and happiness. Then the tree fell over and crushed their lunch. You just never know what will happen next.
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Down on the Suwanee
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Before the drought, it was wet. It was a favorite fishing spot of the local tribe. Who knows how many meals came from the shallow water? Who knows how many cold mornings a warrior waded along the shore for a chance dinner shot at a winged refugee from the Canadian cold?
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Once Wet
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Out in the manicured pasture once roamed a young horse that was faster than its trainer’s expectations. Thoughts of glory and money could scarcely keep up with its gallops. The horse was in its young prime and ready to enter the racing circuit. The trainer saw how close he was to his destiny as a winner.<br /><br />Unbeknownst to the trainer, the owner’s daughter had seen the horse run too. Instead of racing, though, she wanted it for her friend. Her father could not disappoint his determined daughter. On hearing the news, the trainer resigned in his fury and disappointment.<br /><br />It was only years later that the horse was diagnosed with diseased tendons. It would have come up lame on its first race, suitable only for the glue factory. Instead, the daughter and horse grew up together and lived happy, long lives. The trainer ended up a bitter curmudgeon thinking he had been denied reflected fame and glory.<br />
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Horse Home
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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An upscale Horse Pasture abandoned? Has the stock market crash claimed an expensive hobby as its victim?
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Horse Palace
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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It’s a nice house, not too far from the barn. It still looks groomed, as if the financial catastrophe that has engulfed its occupants lies in the distant future.
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Horse Owners House
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Not necessarily heaven for a horse, but maybe its owner? The pens are too small for a horse with the genetic memory of great plains to be roamed.
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Horse Heaven
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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Nothing to do but golf? A place to write the end chapter of a life’s story? What tales are really added when the days are all the same? “I shot a par today. I was one under yesterday. Back in 2003 I got a hole in one. Did I tell you about the time I played Sawgrass?”<br /><br />Really? Did I tell you about the time a little orphan airplane took me from coast to coast, revealing a thousand amazing stories under her wings? How much luck can one tale have and still be credible? I’ll probably be the laughing stock of the nursing home. “That crazy old guy has lost his mind…if he ever had one.”<br />
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Golf Retirement Heaven
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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The prodigal SeaRey returned from whence it came. In its short life it has flown over millions of people, living and dead, each with their own stories to tell. Some are famous and are easily discovered. Some are known only to themselves.<br /><br />Then there are the stories of the creatures and the environments they inhabit she’s flown over. The tales and their variety are seemingly infinite. It is fascinating to find or imagine even a few while flying just overhead.<br /><br />The Gray Lady came back to the only home it has ever known. Photos logged over the last leg of familiar ground numbered only 169, or 1.2 photos per mile. Miles? There were 143 of them in 2.0 hours. That’s 70 mph if you do the math.<br /><br />The bigger picture is that the girl made good on 2690 miles getting from LA back to the factory. Adding the trip out, that’s a total of 5000 miles for a failed business purpose. Men made their plan, thinking they were nearing their destination, only to find it had slip slided away.<br /><br />The failure was no fault of the fine flier, Pia Romeo. As far as I was concerned, her destination was the journey: a destination made good. She has earned her place among great SeaReys as one of the best of breed.<br />
| | Attachments:
Almost Home
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Don Maxwell - Dec 31,2011
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And now her address is in an office park in Newark, Delaware. What kind of place is that for a transcontinental SeaRey?
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Dan Nickens - Dec 31,2011
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When the sky is your home, any place is possible.
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Frank A. Carr - Jan 01,2012
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Thanks Dan for another wonderful Travelogue. I noticed that you seemed to be asking a <br />lot of questions in this narrative; I assume you're not looking for answers here.
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Dan Nickens - Jan 01,2012
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If you got 'em, I can use 'em, Frank! I'm guessing they might be in short supply.
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Steve Kessinger - Jan 02,2012
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When in doubt, I always ask the masters: <br /><br />Are we lost, or are we found at last?<br />On earth we strive for our various needs, because so goes the fundamental law of man. Aloft, at least for a little while, the needs disappear. Likewise the striving.<br />In the thoughts of man aloft, good and evil become mixed and sometimes reversed. This is the open door to wisdom.<br />Aloft, the earth is ancient and man is young, regardless of his numbers, for there, aloft he may reaffirm his suspicions that he may not be so very much. This is the gateway to humility.<br />And yet, aloft there are moments when man can ask himself, 'what am I, this creature so important to me? Who is it rules me from birth to tomb? Am I but a slave destined to crawl for labor to hearth and back again? Am I but one of the living dead, or my own god set free?' This is the invitation to full life. . . .<br />'Where are we?'<br />'If you really must know, I'll tell you.'<br />'Never mind. Here aloft, we are not lost, but found.'<br /><br />— Ernest K. Gann, 'Ernest K. Gann's Flying Circus,' 1974.
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