First, I apologize things have slowed down on the adventures because the book has taken my energy. Now that it is finished and out I can get caught up a bit.
I have to admit this was somewhat of a forced adventure. I had already written most of the book and deciding on what destinations are included for the “Fifty Classics” became tougher than I thought. I finally decided I needed less of the canyonlands area and more near southern California where there are so many pilots.
Catalina, it seemed, should be on the list but I hadn’t been there. At first it seemed like an easy solution. Go there. My friend and fellow 210 pilot Mark Rudolph and his wife Julie gladly accepted an invitation to go there, but schedules got in the way.
Meanwhile I needed to get preview copies of the book out to Magazine editors so I ended up just leaving out Catalina. When we finally did the adventure – which was great – I went home, finished that chapter and literally wrapped up the book in two days with time for printing before the November 1st publishing date.
Luckily we all did have a good time. I didn’t drag everyone there for nothing. It’s a great place to fly to and the diving (being sheltered from the battering waves of the Pacific) is great.
West Coast Flying Adventures 
Wow!! Interesting camera position on approach to Airport in the Sky. How is the camera attached??? I thought I had “matched you” with my bottom left wing mount on my Skylane but you have definitely added a new challenge for me with the vertical stablizer mount!!! Nice job!!
Book arrived. I’m savoring it. Another nice job!! I’ve flown to Catalina dozens of times. Never entered the water. Something about Great Whites and me don’t mix!!!
My best for blessed Christmas Season.
Regards, Loren Gallagher HMT
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I’ll send you a photo of it. It is bomber.
And thank you for the nice comments on the book!
Thanks for writing the book! A pilot friend gave it to Jim since he knows we have plane, bike (tandem) will travel!!!!
If you come to the Bay Area we would love to meet you! Among our past few years adventures are climbing Whitney every year, Shasta, Rainier, Machu pucchu, biking 600 miles in the Camino de Santiago, hiking Milford track, NZ, Kilimanjaro, flying around Denali, Grand Canyon fly and hike to river, Hawaii a few times, everest base camp, Tahoe rim trail. And this year: Hawaii, hiking Eiger to Matterhorn, then November Gallapagos and biking Ecuador. We live in Los Gatos but have a place in Tahoe Keys. We always look to meet fellow adventurers.
Pat and Jim,
Wow, you are us.
If you have a place in the keys (and you drive) then you drive right past our place in Pollock Pines on highway 50. You should let us know and stop by for dinner on the way up or back. Friday nights we always have dinner in Placerville and you are welcome to join us some night if you are heading up. Finally, if you ski we have passes at Sierra, and if/when we have snow we’ll be there many weekends.
Regards, Ney
Thanks, we will try that, or let you know when we come up and we have two extra bedrooms should you and or kids want to join us. Jim’s been flying since he was a teenager and shares a A36 and C172.