Northerly Island, Chicago IL - 10-12-14

 This is Northerly Island in Chicago. There's a lot of history here both for the place itself and for me personally. This man made island near downtown was originally planned as a park. Then even before construction began, the plan become to make it an airport instead.

Construction began in 1920 and was completed in 1925. Because of the depression going on at the time, the airport plans were not carried out and the island did end up being a park.

Then in 1946, it was converted to an airport and Meigs Field was born. Many years later, Microsoft selected Meigs Field to be the default airport for their Flight Simulator program. 

So Meigs field is where I ended up learning to take off and land in Flight Simulator. I spend countless hours trying unsuccessfully to land all kinds of flight sim aircraft there.  My flight sim adventures eventually led me to finding a flight school and getting a private pilot certificate. Which led to a commercial pilot certificate which led to working as a pilot for many years.

 As luck would have it, I got to actually land at Meigs once. It was an impromptu unplanned stop on our way to the flyin at Oshkosh. We landed, saw the police fishing a body out of the water on the west side of the island, had an expensive cheese burger at the yacht club and continued on our way North. Fun times.

Then Mayor Daley who had been unsuccessfully close the airport for many years, decided to take the airport by force and had city crews bull doze the runways in the middle of the night.

Technically it was an act of terrorism but we're Americans so we can overlook that sort of thing apparently. After that Northerly Island returned to being the park it was originally intended to be.

We tried to get shots here once before, but the Bears game that was going on at that time had different plans so that shoot never happened. This time around we arrived to find the park almost completely empty. And also almost completely gone. City planners have decided they didn't built it good enough the first time so they're digging it up and doing it again. This plot of land just can't seem to decide what it wants to be.

WWII Bunker, Cape May Point, NJ 11-29-13

This is the beach in Cape May Point, NJ near where I grew up. This concrete bunker was built in 1942 to protect the coast from German U-boats. When it was originally built, it was about 900' inland from the water on a patch of high ground. It was covered in sod to help it blend with the surroundings and there were round concrete turrets in front of the structure that held 6" guns.

The ocean is powerful thing and it changes the coast line over time. So by the time I was growing up in the early 70's, the ocean had moved the beach inland to erase the high ground from the landscape and leave the bunker planted firmly on the beach. At that time, the remains of the concrete gun turrets could still be seen. Those turrets are now long gone, washed out to sea.

For most of my life the bunker did not sit on the beach as it does now. But rather it sat about 15' above the beach supported on a collection of wood pilings that were sunk into the soil during its construction.  The pilings were used to keep the structure from sinking into the ground. But they were never intended to hold the entire structure up in mid-air with the tides and storm surges washing in and out below. So the structure always had signs posted which essentially said this thing could fall down at any minute so don't come crying to us if it falls on you and kills you.

But the ocean is fickle and can sometimes change its mind. And over the last ten years or so, the ocean has been dumping sand on the beach rather than taking it away. And as a result. the bunker once again sits on solid ground.

So this past Thanksgiving while we were in town visiting family, we took advantage of some terrific light and good winds and got some nice shots of the bunker as it sat in the fall of 2013. The ocean being what it is, I fully expect the bunker and the beach surrounding it will continue to change for many years to come until eventually, the sand buries it again or the water carries out to sea bit by bit leaving no trace that it was ever there.

9-20-12 Beaver Island, MI

This is the town of St James on Beaver Island, MI. Both the town and the entire island are unlike any place we've ever seen. The island is located at the Northern end of Lake Michigan about 30 miles from the Michigan mainland. The island is 13 miles long and varies between 3 and 6 miles wide. There are about 650 residence most of whom live at the northern end of the island in the area in and around St James harbor. There are 4 restaurants, 2 lighthouses, 1 sheriff (Travis) and no traffic lights. There is also a golf course, 2 airports, several lakes and lots of hiking and biking trails through miles of absolutely beautiful forests.

But I think the most fascinating things about the island can't be revealed in the facts and figures. Its hard to describe what it is exactly. Call it a feeling or a vibe. There is just something about this place, the look and feel of it all. And the people. The residence here definitely add to the unique character of the experience. Everyone is exceedingly nice, but there's more to it than that. They look out for each other. They take care of each other. I suppose it has to do with the isolation and how hard the winters can be. The only way to get by is to rely on the help of others and give others whatever help you can in return. It seems almost tribe-like at times. Its a fascinating thing to experience.

We booked the whole week and been exploring island and its culture in between long stretches of staring at the water and doing absolutely nothing. A vacation success if ever there was one. The weather hasn't been the greatest, lots of rain and overcast skies. But the winds have been strong and we've been able to take advantage of the rare moments of good sunlight to grab a few flights and get some decent shots from a couple of spots.

There are lots more pictures to be had here. We've only scratched the surface of it. But even still, I think its been a successful trip on all counts.

8-18-12 Chicago Lakeshore Shot w/GoPro

8-18-12 Chicago Lakeshore 6, a photo by joe_gremlin on Flickr.

We've lived in the Midwest for over two years now and we've never been to Chicago. So we decided it was time for a daytrip. On the agenda was the Science and Industry Museum and then whatever kite locations we could find.

The museum was terrific. Lots to see and lots of walking. The kite locations not so much. There are tons of fabulous locations to fly kites along the Chicago lake shore. But you need to make sure there isn't some sort of special event (or several of them) going on the day you're there. If not, finding parking for less than $50 is impossible as is finding more than 3 square feet of real estate which doesn't have at least a dozen people in it.

This left us with limited options. So we started heading North along the lake until it seemed like the people were starting to thin out a bit. And that brought us to a place known as Waveland Park. Its a little patch of softball fields right next to a small golf course. Perfect.

Winds were light but steady. We flew the delta and used the GoPro to shoot about 15 minutes of HD video. These pics are captures from that video which explains why they're a little on the rough side as far as resolution goes. Because despite its name, HD video works out to only about 2 megapixels when it comes to still photos. Next flight, we'll likely experiment with having the GoPro shoot stills every 2 seconds or so which should yield better resolution photos.











After we brought the camera down, we decided to test our newest kite. A Rokkaku we bought in North Carolina last year. We've never flown one and they're a bit tricky. But they do extremely well in light wind conditions once you figure out how to rig them properly. We didn't feel confident enough to fly the camera with it this time out but it did really well otherwise. I think it will be a useful addition to our collection. This pic was shot with my droid phone.

Lessons learned in OBX

Wright Memorial 9-19-11, a photo by joe_gremlin on Flickr.

We spent the past week in on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. A great vacation overall. Weather was really good for vacating but was kind of iffy most of the time for flying the kite and getting pictures. Couple that with my almost complete lack of pre-trip checks of the kite and equipement bags and you end up with lots of missed opportunities. But I learned some important lessons about what not to do in the future so its not all bad.

These are some of the very shots we ended up getting. This is the Wright Brothers National Monument. Most definitely worth a visit if you're even in the area.

This was the first spot we launched the kite from. The wind was good, the light wasn't bad and everything was working pretty well. Our plan was to get some shots from this vantage point and then start walking to different spots with the kite and rig airborn. Unfortunately, as soon as we started moving the next spot, the battery alarm on the remote transmitter started beeping. We were out of power.

What's worse, because of my lack of pre-trip checks all the three chargers that I own were 800 miles away on the bench in the basement. I drove to hobby shop 60 miles away the next morning to buy another charger (so we've got 4 now). But it was too late. The weather and other equipment issues more or less prevented getting any other worthwhile shots the rest of the week. Lessons learned I suppose.

Ithaca, NY

Ithaca, NY, a photo by joe_gremlin on Flickr.

We were in Ithaca this weekend for a wedding. The ceremony itself actually took place at the foot of the little pier just right of center in this shot (congratulations J&M). While we were at the ceremony, I spotted this little park across the inlet.

So this afternoon, we went over to see if we could get any shots. I didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare for this trip and it became very apparent when we tried to launch.

The winds were very light but I thought there might be enough to get the delta in the air. Unfortunately, one of the spars from the delta is MIA. I'm sure its around, but I'm also sure its back in Michigan. So flying the delta is out for this trip. Lesson learned.

So we walked around a bit and found a spot where the breeze seemed to be a bit stronger. I reconfigured the tail on the FF16 and put it up with the light line. We got in the air using a long line launch and it seemed to find purchase once it was above the tree line.

So I turned my attention to the camera rig. The USB wire was giving me some trouble and it took a little fiddling to get the camera shutter to trigger. Switched to the backup camera and fiddled with the wire a little more and finally it seemed to be working. So we attached it and put it up.

Got a few nice shots out of it. Not my best work. Not my worst. As always, there are better shots here to try and get the next time we're in town.

Vicksburg, MI SIlo

Vicksburg, MI SIlo, a photo by joe_gremlin on Flickr.