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2012 San Francisco Air Venture 2012-07-06 Day Summary

We made it to San Francisco in these little, but oh, so capable airplanes!

I’ll do a longer and more complete message later, but I just wanted to let you know we’re here.  Yee ha!

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We made it!  We landed at 1230 this afternoon at Novato – Gnoss Field, just north of San Francisco.  We could see downtown San Francisco through the haze on our approach into Gnoss.

Our day started out to be very warm and we had to make a detour to avoid a fire that the bombers were working south of Redding.  We had to divert around the east end of the city and airport.  It added maybe 15 minutes to the first leg.

The Sacramento Valley we flew south through was nothing short of stunning.  This flight was easily one of the most  incredible flights I’ve had in twenty-six years of flying. It was smooth with no wind and the temperature was perfect.

We landed at a place called Colusa to get some gas and take a short break.  Then we headed south to Napa where we turned southwest for Gnoss.  Again, it was nearly perfectly smooth and incredibly scenic.

We landed at Gnoss, tied down and got our car organized.  The rental company, Enterprise, upgraded us to a Chrysler 300 for no charge.  We’ve had exceptional service from them the whole way.

We headed to the hotel in San Rafael that I booked a couple of months ago and discovered that it was, in fact, a flea bag shit hole located right beside another flea bag shithole, which was located on the same block as their local homeless shelter!  We cancelled our reservation.

With the help of my Anywhere Map GPS, which also has a ground nav GPS mode, we located another hotel in Gnoss and booked in there.  A much better choice, for sure.

We grabbed a bite at a local restaurant that was only so-so, and headed into San Francisco to do a little exploring.

What an experience to be on the Golden Gate Bridge at the edge of the Pacific Ocean on a beautiful summer evening after having flown our little airplanes – an ultralight and a 66-year old Champ – all the way there from Calgary!  How am I going to top, or even match, something like this?

Golden Gate Bridge

We spent an hour, or so, driving around and exploring the heart of the city and some of the suburbs.  This place is so alive and just teeming with people out and about.  The architecture is beautiful and classic.  There were moments I thought I’d stepped into a Humphrey Bogart movie.  At other times I wondered how we found ourselves in such a ghetto.  This city is extremely diverse and absolutely iconic.

We came back to the hotel and made plans for all the stuff we’re going to see in the next couple of days.

Here are a few photos; a cockpit shot of me, a shot of Geoff’s Champ over the Sacramento Valley.

Stu Flying

Tomorrow, we’re going to an airfield at Sonoma because on Saturday morning they roll out all their vintage planes, their classics, and some warbirds.  I’ll send some photos if I get any good ones.

Blue Skies,

Stu