NASA Ames, Fioli Gardens, Inverness Yacht Club, Monterey diving, Santa Cruz caves, and some flying

Over the weekend Sondy and I ventured northward to the south Bay.  We stopped in at NASA Ames to visit Alex in his native habitat on Friday morning.  Fioli Gardens made for a nice lunchtime stop.  The afternoon saw us in Point Reyes visiting Sondy’s old stomping grounds.  Saturday I accompanied Alex and Laurren for some exciting dives in Monterey.  On Sunday I reconnected with Sondy in Santa Cruz for some caving adventures and a little flying before we headed south for LA once more.

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Alex showed Sondy and me his work area.  It was deep inside a nondescript government building at Ames.

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This device cools whatever happens to be strapped to the end of it down to a temperature very close to absolute zero.

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Alex’s workspace and the RTG design he’s been playing with the last two years.

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Hangar at Moffett Field.

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A “small” wind tunnel at Ames.

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MythBuster’s faked lunar landing site.

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The 80×120 foot wind tunnel.  The size of this thing is hard to comprehend until you stand next to it.

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It’s REALLY big.

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One small step for an intern…

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Inside the fake lunar landing.

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Driving under the wind tunnel.

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Just an old Titan I that they happened to have laying around.

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Sondy demonstrating the emergency rocket exits.

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I thought this was a good idea at the time…

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Shoot!  They already took the payload out.

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Huge fan blade hub.

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Old U2 spy plane hanging out by the wind tunnel.

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1/3 scale model of the Space Shuttle formerly used for testing in the wind tunnel.

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Underpass at the supersonic wind tunnel.

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A big valve in the supersonic wind tunnel.

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Those little placards at the base are about four feet tall.

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Hangar 1.  It’s huge!

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Cheap airplane for sale.  Needs some work.

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At the Fioli Gardens.  The gate through the wall into the garden.

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In the more formal part of the garden.

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Nice swimming pool.  Too bad they didn’t let us swim!

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Nice and shady.

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New fruit trees.

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The mansion attached to the gardens.

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The Lexus was anything but a pocket rocket.

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After Fioli, we decided to head toward Point Reyes where Sondy grew up.

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A happy rainbow tunnel!

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The Inverness Yacht Club where Sondy learned to sail and where she taught others how to look good on the water.

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Little boats for young sailors.

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Sondy helped a girl stow her sail.

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The guy in black is the current head instructor.

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Sunset above Mountain View.  This is looking out toward the sea.

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On Saturday Alex, Lauren, and I went out to Monastery Beach for some diving.  We decided to check out the north side of the dive site and do some deep dives into the trench.

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Descending into the depths.

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A fish.  The fish on this side were all super tame and let us go quite near them.

Alex was a wee bit narc’ed when we went below 100 feet.

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On the first dive we went down to 130 feet.

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Lauren checking something out.

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Alex takes a picture.

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A jellyfish.

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Alex got all roided up between dives.

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CRAB!

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Alex said the crab was pretty strong.

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Some very strange egg pod we ran into.  Each little head is a different creature.

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A fish that was trying to hide.

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A big fish that I played with.

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A bride and groom rode by as we doffed our gear.

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The natural arches in Santa Cruz.

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Sondy sporting the latest in caving fashion accessories.

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My equally awesome caving helmet.

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At the car with the caving crew.

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The cave entrance.

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Inside the cave.

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Sondy practicing how to drive stick.

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At Joby, the company that invented the Gorrillapod.  They are also doing other much cooler things.

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Joby kittens.

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If you drink a kitten, it helps reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

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Old prototype.

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After we left the caving crew, Sondy, Henry, and I went flying in a Cessna 172 out of Watsonville.

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We took off and were up, up, and away!

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The fog was starting to creep back in so we had to scramble back to the airport.

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Henry executed a wonderful landing.

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Our trusty airplane and confident pilot.  If only homeland security knew that he is British!

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