My best friend from elementary school, who lives and works in Abu Dhabi UAE, was home for a few days so I drove down to Grants Pass to meet up with him. He's a pilot too and loves to explore our old stomping grounds from the air, so I figured we'd go camp for the night at Powers. He took all these photos with his nifty IXUS 860 IS wide angle Canon digicam.
Powers is a magically weird land of splendor, a seemingly forgotten logging town community equidistant from the I-5 corridor and the Oregon coast. They have one of the nicest grass airstrips I've been to, and it's huge. I love going to near sea level strips because my 145 HP engine really gets to walk the talk.
Royce has a fairly stressful job, and I'm really good at doing nothing, so we set out to do the least amount possible while camping. We basically swam in the river and drank beer, and sat around BS'ing. Besides the resident bull, we didn't see another soul at the airport. I pretty much just thought "what would the MauleBros do?" and did that.
I left the block and tackle back at the hangar, so getting this beer bottle open without a church key required creative use of my pliers. I was elated when it finally popped.
Jr Cubbuilder makes fun of my beloved Coquille River. He says it's a creek, but it's the perfect swimming temp.
We consulted with the airport manager about the facilities.
It's very close to the ocean so the moist air always turns to fog during the night, but then burns off usually within a few hours of sunrise.
Royce was really adamant about sleeping in the open under the wing. It may have had something to do not wanting to share a tent with me after the amount of beer and hot dogs I consumed.
South of Cape Blanco, the westernmost post in the contiguous US.
Lower Rogue River, very popular with rafters. Jet boats run it upstream from Gold Beach and manage to climb some extremely severe rapids.
We all know I'm a total poser, but this is the kind of flying fun that I really love. It's everything good about airplane camping with none of the stress of high DA and nasty terrain.
And now for the piece de resistance de poser. My girlfriend made fun of it really bad, and said she was bored after 30 seconds.
