Our 2010 Auto Trip; Part VIII, Day 11 & 12

4th & 5th of July; A cousin Party and Sightseeing in the Black Hills of SD --

Fourth of July was spent in Spearfish, going to church with Cousin Bitsy and enjoying her showing us some sights in and around Spearfish. One of the interesting things we saw was this sculpted stump, representing fish leaping, as up a small waterfall. This photo is a "stitched" set of three or four photos taken from different angles as I walked along the sidewalk near the sculpture. This technique allows the viewer to "see" the fish at the back side of the stump, as well as a full view of the largest fish whose tail is wrapped around the stump. No single photo captures this entirety.

We also visited the City Campground which has been around since Grumpy was a little girl. He remembers camping there with his Dad in the early thirty's. It is much different now; lush green grass all over and a modern restroom facility. Cabins that existed in 1933 have been removed to make way for RV parking. The Grand Mother was not impressed, as she lamented the fact that the RV's are parked too close together. I think we both preferred our accommodations at our air-conditioned/heated cabin at Spearfish Creek Inn. Yes, we used both air-conditioning and heat; the weather went from hot to chilly while we were there.

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The 5th of July is  Bitsy's (AKA, "Joan") birthday. She claimed to be "85", but Grumpy knows that she lied about her age -- perhaps she just wanted to qualify for Senior Citizen discounts. At any rate, the Birthday Girl treated us all (Lorraine, Kay, Elynor and Grumpy) to a sightseeing tour up Spearfish Canyon, through the old gold-mining town of Lead and back to Spearfish via Deadwood on U.S. 85A.

In Spearfish Canyon, she pointed out where two large boulders had tumbled from the limestone cliffs some two hundred feet above and, clearing their way through trees, ended up leaning against each other partially straddling Spearfish Creek.

Then, a few miles further up the Canyon, she showed us a view of Spearfish Falls from the highway. Grumpy had lived in Western SD for over 25 years; he had traveled numerous times sightseeing up and down Spearfish Canyon. But he had not  seen nor heard of Spearfish Falls. When we stopped briefly at Roughlock Lodge, Grumpy took the opportunity to hike down into the bottom of the Canyon to get this picture. The amount of water coming out of this "hole in the canyon wall" is so large that Grumpy thought it must be the origin of Spearfish Creek itself. But later observation upstream revealed that probably only about half of the flow in the Creek comes from these Falls.

At the upper end of Spearfish Canyon, where it meets with U.S. 85A, is a legendary eatery known as "Cheyenne Crossing". Here, the Birthday Girl (center) was feted with a fine dinner, accompanied by (right to left): Lorraine, Kay, Ward & Elynor.

After a sumptuous lunch, we went over the "hill" to Lead, the former home of the Homestake Gold mine -- largest in the world, until it closed a few years ago when the value of gold in this location (up to about 8,000 feet below the surface!) became unprofitable.

However, before Homestake pulled up stakes, they discovered a surface deposit (including some of the "tailings" from the deep mine) where the former "company town" homes were located on a hill just across the gulch from the deep mine. 

 

Homestake eventually literally dug up the mountain that was there before (Grumpy remembers it well) with the result, this hole that is several hundred feet deep and about 1/2 mile across at the top.

After a slow drive through downtown Deadwood, we journeyed back to Spearfish to meet with cousin Jimmy and his wife Shirley. The final picture shows five cousins, including four from the Eddy clan, with Shirley and Elynor. After a brief visit, which concluded this "Cousin Party", and recounting some memories, the Grand Mother and Grumpy returned to their cabin for a good night's rest. Tomorrow we go to Lander WY to visit old friends whom we first met when we lived in Belle Fourche.

Last Great Flying Adventure -- Part IV

5 & 6 October 2009; Curacao and Boa Vista --
The flight from Great Exuma to Curacao was our longest overwater leg of this journey to Brazil. An hour or so out of Exuma, we flew over the western part of Haiti and Uncle Bob pointed out an inland lake whose surface is 310 feet below sealevel. That is lower than Death Valley and even lower than the bottom of Salton Sea, which was dry before a leaking irrigation canal filled it to above its present level early in the 20th century. Much of Haiti is mountainous and unsuited for agriculture; the rest that we saw is pretty barren. It's no wonder that the people who live there have an average monthly income of a few dollars.

I have been to Curacao previously (see earlier post of late April 2007); it is a possession of the Netherlands -- not independent like Aruba and Bon Aire. The architecture and color of the buildings is very suggestive of Amsterdam. In the center of the city (Wilhemsted) is a canal that connects a harbor inland to the Caribbean. As we dined on the terrace of our fancy hotel, we saw a large cargo ship being towed out to sea down the canal.

The canal has a swinging pontoon bridge that crosses the canal so pedestrians can walk across to the other side. To drive to the other side involves a long route around the inland harbor, so it is preferable to walk (or take the ferry) across the 100 meter wide canal. When Grumpy was here a couple years ago, the pontoon bridge was being totally rebuilt, so this is the first time I had seen it. Foolishly, Grumpy did not take a picture of the bridge while it was daylight; it is a very unusual (to me) construction, with a series of flat "boats" strung out along the length of the bridge to support the weight of the bridge above. Each "boat" is double-ended so they can go either direction with minimum drag. The end "boat" is powered and it is the one that swings the bridge open or closed. It takes several minutes to swing the bridge open or closed and to secure it before pedestrians are allowed to start across.

We left Curacao airport early in the day -- before breakfast (most of the places supply breakfast too late for this pair of ex-farm brothers!) -- and climbed into the clear morning air on our way over Venezuela to Boa Vista, our point of entry into Brazil. Our route from Curacao took us toward the South American shore and then turned easterly to follow that shore until we intersected it at about Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Our route also took us over the area where Angel Falls is located. Naturally, we "had" to take a peek -- cloudy conditions allowing. Our technique, developed over two previous attempts to sight the Falls, is to fly to a point directly North of the Falls and then navigate due South, flying above the canyon out of which the river flows that produces the Angel Falls phenomenon.

Having those previous experiences, it was almost easy to spot the Falls even though the clouds were uncooperative. We knew exactly where it was and where we were, flying above the clouds, so when we were right beside it, I spyed it through a hole in the clouds and took several quick photos. I'll have to see how they look blown up and cropped, and maybe "lightened" a little, to see if they are as convincing to anyone besides Uncle Bob and myself. Here is one, just to show you the visual handicaps under which we labored to spot the Falls! With a cooperative pilot flying the airplane and a more or less wide awake photographer handling his $600 camera, it should have been better; the photographer forgot to place the zoom lens in telephoto mode!! :<( Too bad; there won't be another chance. But, a few minutes later, as we continued on course for Boa Vista, Grumpy spotted several high water falls emanating from cliffs, similar to Angel Falls. So, if the reader is not impressed with the photo of Angel Falls, let him (or her) feast their eyes on this telephoto shot of this lesser falls. By comparison, since Angel Falls is 1000 meters, Grumpy estimates this one as about 300 meters (1000 feet). It appears to have a discontinuity about 100 feet down from its top. The predominate dark green of the jungle gives a sharp contrast, but not much detail of the ruggedness of the terrain here.

Boa Vista is on the Rio Negro (which flows into the Amazon at Manaus. We landed here at midafternoon, went through Customs, Federal Police (to verify liability insurance on the plane), Brazil Aeronautics (for permission to operate the US registered Mooney in Brazil), and Health (to be sure we had no communicable diseases -- the injection nurse didn't ask for my Yellow Fever proof of inoculation this time!). All of this took a long time but there was a coffee shop handy so we relaxed in between waits with a cup of genuine Brazilian coffee!

We stayed in a very nice hotel in Boa Vista, not far from the river front where we dined on fresh fish caught from the Rio Negro. We had a table next to the railing where we could look down about 30 feet to the surface of the river. In flood season, the surface is within four or five feet of the bottom of this deck! I forgot how deep the river is at this point, but I do know that cruise ships can navigate it without fear of sandbars and the like. It is a fairly slow moving river here but strongly colored opaque by the "tea" formed by decaying vegetation upstream in the jungle out of which it flows.

Unfortunately, the internet connection at this hotel was unsuccessful. Later I was to find out why.

Two Views of Angel Falls (from the Web)

This view of Angel Falls is the best one I have found, showing it at its greatest flow. This photo, taken by Mr. Alex Dios, is impressive in that it also shows a nearly cloudless day! Rare indeed for this region during the "wet" season. (Another photo, from the top edge by Mr. Ron Mullenax, seen at the same website shows the Falls in flood stage on the near-cloudless day.)

I showed the above photo of Angel Falls and the one following to demonstrate the contrast between the Falls during the wet season and the dry season. Pictured at right below is Angel Falls at another time of year. This latter photo was taken by Reino Almarsund.

Both photos shown, as well as others of the Falls, may be found on the web. At this website, look under the lower set of thumbnails, "Photos nearby", clicking on "previous" or "next" for other photos of the Falls. Note the photographer's name above the thumbnails as you view each photograph. If interested in other photos he has taken, click the upper set of thumbnails.

Angel Falls, Take II

Bob and I had promised each other that, having "discovered" Angel Falls on the trip down, we would navigate our return route to pass by again and see if we could get another photograph. I carefully changed out the memory and the rechargeable batteries in my camera, replacing them with fresh batteries and an empty 128mb memory card; I wanted to be sure that nothing would interrupt this opportunity to get photographs of Angel Falls!

We left Boa Vista early on this morning (24 March 2007) to improve our chances of seeing the Falls before the typical late-morning and afternoon clouds rolled in. The scattered low cumulus and zero wind gave us hope!

Bob navigated us to the 6th Parallel north of the Equator and to the east of the Wikipedia-posted 62.5 degree west longitude location of the Falls. (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki actually gives the location as: 5°58′03″N, 62°32′08″W , a location with which we could find no fault.) From this eastern point, we turned straight west following the 6th parallel for a short distance, whereupon Bob took the controls, turning left (south) toward the canyon that contained the Falls (see GPS track in photo at right above, starting on the right; North is up). I was freed to look for the Falls and to operate my camera.

There it was!! Bob banked sharply to the right so I could get a straight shot out of the right side of the airplane. I had turned on my camera, but then discovered that it did not respond! At first I thought the batteries I had put in had discharged from non-use; I dumped them out all over the cabin floor to replace them with the ones I had taken out at the hotel that morning. That's when I discovered that one of the batteries had been installed upside down. No time to fumble around finding them all -- I got Bob's camera and took a couple pictures. One was poorly aimed and missed the Falls but captured the river from the Falls; the other is shown at right -- the Falls is a mere shower of mist in this dry season. It is just to the right of center next to the edge of a cloud.

Bob flipped the airplane on its other wing, gave me the controls, took his camera and captured another picture of the Falls through the little opening in his side of the cockpit -- no plexiglass to spoil the resolution. The Falls is that misty haze showing to the left of the dark green cliff near the center of the photo at right.

None of the pictures is as spectacular as the ones you will find on the Venezuelan tourist website (see photo on right taken from lower altitude, approximately at the level of the Tepui and the one below, taken from the ground). But these are OUR pictures and proof that we were there!

It may be easier to interpret our pictures by noticing the two parts of the Falls in the photo at right, taken from the Venezuelan tourist website. The smaller part to the right is the only one that was active when we flew by in February and March. The bigger part to the left and also visible in the photo through the trees (below) are only active during the wet season -- probably late winter (August-September).









I relish the experience and the opportunity to see this, the tallest waterfall in the world at 3212 feet -- the first 2648 feet uninterrupted!

Here in Brazil

I have been in Brazil now almost a week, and just now have my photographs accessible to the Win98 machine available to post to my Blog. I will attempt to attach a few today and then add more later as I become more adept at understanding the instructions on this computer, all of which are in Portuguese!

The first photo I want to share is the best one we have of Angel Falls. It is not a very good one because the Falls face southeast and we were there in the afternoon so the falls are in the shade, but you can make out the spray of water seemingly eminating from the side of the cliff ; that is how it really is! Apparently, the river which feeds the falls has found a crack in the rock on top of the Tepui (mesa, second photo) and during low flows (when we were there) finds its way out of the side of the cliff. The total drop of the falls is about 3200 feet.

I will try to put more of my pictures on the blog another day.

Angel Falls, Still Looking

Last night Uncle Bob and I pored over some old aviation maps of the Venezuelan highlands from which Angel Falls emanates. We also looked, on a more recent aviation map, at previous tracks that Bob (and, twice, I also) have flown in and around where Angel Falls is supposedly located. On the old map, I noted that the stream on which Angel Falls is located did not show the branch on which the Falls is actually located. I dug out a copy of a hand-drawn map, depicting the relative locations and directions of cliffs, the various rivers and tributaries in and around the Falls. When we compared this hand drawing with the aviation maps, we discovered that they generally did not show the little side stream (which also appears on the Google maps!) that represents Angel Falls' source.

We now have a better idea of what to look for when we overfly that part of the country. If the clouds cooperate, I believe we will be able to see the Falls this time! We know where to look and which direction to look (northwesterly), and the most advantageous position for the airplane to be in order to be looking obliquely toward the Falls -- for obvious reasons, you can't really see these Falls if you are directly above them.

Last night we weighed most of our stuff: "Aircraft parts", Maps and Documents, Food box, Tools, Survival gear, empty reserve tank (which will be filled with 20 gallons of 100 octane low-lead gasoline), Cabin supplies (including earphones, intercom and those all-important 1.25 liter jugs used to hold what the long-suffering bladder cannot -- there are no "rest-stops" along the freeways of the sky!). Today we will load these things and the life boat into the airplane and fly it up to the paved runway north of Huntsville. Tonight we will pack and weigh our luggage to have it ready to stow aboard for our take-off tomorrow morning.

Where in the World is Angel Falls?

Uncle Bob blew the air out of my sails by confirming that the coordinates I found on Wikipedia are the same as he got from Google. Well, we already went by those last April and, as near as I can tell, we were too far West and South -- by at least a mile (one minute of latitude or longitude near the equator is equivalent to one nautical mile).

Can anyone out there suggest another source for the coordinates of Angel Falls? I have searched the Venezuela website but they are more interested in enviegling tourists into their "spider webs" than giving out any information useful to a transient flying over at 12,000 feet.