Hey Friends, thanks to your enthusiastic reception, here’s“Miles and Miles of Sunflowers,”my latest “View from the Flying Carpet” Fine Art Metal Print!
I was returning my wife Jean and her tennis teammate Jenny from a tournament in El Paso. Five long hours round trip by Flying Carpet, and it was too hazy to see anything special… until 15 minutes from home.
There we encountered these vivid, horizon-to-horizon sunflowers sweeping from Lake Mary toward the San Francisco Peaks. Never have we seen anything like this before! This turns out to be Northern Arizona’s most amazing wildflower year in memory, and we’re thrilled to have captured even a tiny fragment of it from aloft.
Nowhere is the power of numbers more boldly reflected than in these fields of sunflowers captured from a speeding airplane thousands of feet in the air!
Like all my Fine Art Metal Prints, “Miles and Miles of Sunflowers,” ready-to-hang pricing starts at just $125, with super-affordable 2-day shipping throughout the Continental US.
I flew my wife and her teammate to El Paso and back over the weekend to compete in tennis sectionals. Two grueling 5-hour round trips, and too hazy to see much of anything in either case, until…
Just 15 minutes from home, I encountered horizon-to-horizon gold!All that yellow is wildflowers, most if not all, sunflowers!
Talk about the power of numbers! Imagine how many plants it takes to carpet so many square miles, vividly viewed from a speeding airplane several thousand feet in the air!
If anyone’s interested in having one of these as a Fine Art Metal Print, please drop me a message. (See my current Views from the Flying Carpet and Down to Earth Fine Art Metal Prints.)
Greg
Top photo: Sunflowers stretch from south of Lake Mary toward the San Francisco Peaks. Below: Miles of wildflowers span northeast to northwest viewed from over Mormon Lake. (Click images to enlarge.)
Note Mormon Lake Overlook at lower left
Note Mormon Lake Overlook at lower left
Note San Francisco Peaks thunderstorm
At Kachina Wetlands a few days earlier…
Greg’s current “Sunflowers” Down to Earth Fine Art Metal Prints
Ride along with renowned aviator, writer, and photographer Greg Brown in his light airplane, the Flying Carpet, as he searches behind clouds for the real America, experiencing countless aerial adventures along the way.
Listen to “Birthday Flowers,” Greg’s Flying Carpet Podcast Flight #15
When celebrating birthdays with zeros in them, flowers alone won’t do it. So when my wife Jean marked a new decade I sought somewhere special we could fly to celebrate.
“But it seems kinda weird celebrating a big birthday in Death Valley,” she said…
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Episode #15 Photos
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About Greg
A former National Flight Instructor of the Year, Greg is author of five books, a former Barnes & Noble Arizona Author of the Month, and recently completed twenty years as aviation adventure columnist for AOPA’s Flight Training magazine. Some reviewers have compared his book, “Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane,” to sixties road-trip classics like “On the Road,” and “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
“Greg thinks with the mind of a pilot, questions with the curiosity of a philosopher, and sees with the eyes of a poet.” — Rod Machado, aviation author and humorist
“You don’t have to be a pilot, or even a frequent flyer, to soar with Greg Brown in [his] Flying Carpet.” — Nina Bell Allen, former Assistant Managing Editor, Readers Digest
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Once or twice a year I hear of friends visiting “Grand Falls,” a seasonal waterfall on Arizona’s Little Colorado River. Although the little-known 185-foot desert cataract is taller than Niagara Falls, it runs in volume only occasionally following mountain snow-melt, monsoon thunderstorms, or rare widespread rain.
Jean and I have always wanted to visit the landmark, but have been hampered both by its ephemeral water flow, and by the tortuous drive over primitive roads to reach its remote location northeast of Flagstaff. The rugged journey favors high-clearance vehicles, and traveling in pairs in case of breakdown. Invariably we either hear too late that the falls have been running, or are otherwise committed when invited to go.
Given the magnitude of the waterfall when flowing, I’d always assumed it would also be exciting to view from the air. But it’s not marked on sectional charts, nor many other maps for that matter, so finding it seemed a task in itself.
Then one late-summer morning I found myself desperate to fly. Not having been aloft in weeks, and armed with a new camera that demanded “testing,” I decided on a lark to seek out Grand Falls and mark it for future reference in my GPS navigator. There’d been little rain lately, so I didn’t expect the falls to be running. But knowing their location would be useful for a future aerial visit when the right opportunity arose.
I first gleaned general coordinates and nearby landmarks via Internet search. I also knew the Little Colorado River runs northwestward from Winslow to ultimately join the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. By intercepting the Little Colorado near Winslow and tracing it downstream, I should easily find Grand Falls.
The instant I departed the ground, I knew I’d picked the right day to fly. The sky sparkled cobalt, punctuated by snowy puffs of fair-weather cumulus. No sooner had I turned downwind for departure than I was mesmerized by a huge field of vivid yellow wildflowers bordering Lake Mary southeast of town. I diverted in that direction and sailed over the sea of golden blossoms. Floating in their midst like a spidery space station was the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer, an observatory that collects starlight from distant galaxies via widely dispersed light tubes, and calculates their distance from Earth via parallax.
Following a joyous few minutes savoring chrome-yellow flowers, I departed Flagstaff’s pine forest over high desert to intercept the Little Colorado River. I found it chiseled as if by a coping saw through crimson rock north of Winslow. Tracing the channel toward its distant Colorado River junction, I almost missed Grand Falls, as it proved virtually invisible from the upstream side. But for whatever reason, I happened to glance back. To my surprise and delight given the dry summer weather, the falls flowed vigorously.
Top photo: At 185 feet, Arizona’s “Grand Falls,” is taller than Niagara (note cars in foreground), but flows in volume only a few times a year. Upper right: Late-summer wildflowers tint the Coconino Plateau near Flagstaff, Arizona. Lower left: Wildflowers envelop the Navy Precision Optical Observatory. SEE MORE PHOTOS!
(This column first appeared in the July, 2014 issue of AOPA Flight Training magazine.)
