Aso January 2002

On January 12 our friends Steve and Keiko came to visit so we went for a drive in the Aso area. Unfortunately, we only have pictures of a couple of the things we did, but those pictures came out pretty well, I think.

Tawarayama

• Keiko and Steve [small] [big]

  Leon and Mia join Keiko and Steve and their two dogs, Fluffy and Happy in this picture. Leon is distracted by the paraglider in the background. As the next picture shows, he was wise to pay attention to it.

• Difficult landing [small] [big]

  The paraglider in the last picture was about to land -- nearly on top of us. The dogs, who had never had an opportunity to chase such a big bird, met the challenge with enthusiasm. (Steve is doing his best to call them off.) After this shot was taken, wind conditions and, perhaps, fear of the dogs almost made the pilot crash into Mariko, who was video taping the incident.

• Family picture [small] [big]

• Looking up the mountain [small] [big]

  Steve and Keiko are in the foreground here and in the distance you may be able to see another paraglider on its way down the mountain. The winds tend to blow up the mountain making it a great place to fly. On a good day, paragliders can fly indefinitely, supported by the winds that blow up the mountain.

• Keiko, Steve, and Mariko [small] [big]

• Two paragliders [small] [big]

  This shot was taken from more-or-less the same place looking down the mountain and over the valley.

• Three paragliders [small] [big]

  Here we are looking back up the mountain.

The Aso volcano

• Mariko [small] [big]

  Next we went to the volcano in the center of Mount Aso. Mariko was doing some video taping when Keiko, I think, took this picture. Although it was very warm in the valley that day there was still some snow, as you can see, at the top of the mountain.