Flying Home 



Pictures from this blog entry may be found here.

It may be weeks before I can walk right after the cramps I had in my calves from the flight. Over eight hours cooped up in that flying Pringles can that Boeing call a 737 is just too much on the muscles. Our flight was a direct flight from Seattle to Louisville with stops in Oakland and Vegas; which means we couldn't get off the plane to walk around and stretch.

I couldn't see much on the flight down the coast as it was cloudy and I had the aisle seat. Only shots I got were 3 extended arm shots of Mt Ranier and Mt St Helens as we passed Portland. Didn't see much worth taking a picture of from Oakland to Vegas even though I now had the window seat after a few people got off in Oakland. Unfortunately, the pilot said we would not be flying a direct route to Vegas as we had to make a couple of kinks in our flight path to avoid flying close to Area 51, so there goes that photo op. Of course Vegas just looks artificial and tacky sitting out in the desert in the middle of nowhere and I do literally mean the middle of nowhere.

Did I mention that Southwest pilots are hot-shots? Our pilot was accelerating HARD while making the turn onto the runway for takeoff. He seemed to be competent even when doing that, but I found that unusual in a commercial pilot. Yes, I may have done it while I was still flying, but I wasn't flying a Pringles can with more than a hundred paying customers on board.

From Vegas I went picture crazy from the north end of Lake Mead (looks like it is drying up with its broad bath tub ring around it) to the spine of the Rockies in Colorado where the clouds got to thick for anymore pictures and the ground was too dark over Kansas where the clouds cleared. Saw lots of canyonland, forest fires, storm clouds, smoke and land that looked like dry lizard skin. Beyond that, the only interesting thing was flying a bit south of St. Louis where the city lights made it look like an electronic map laid out before us. Could see the dark ribbons of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers carving their way through the constellations of city light and make out the paths of I-64, I-70, I-44 and the rest as they snaked into, through and finally out of the city. I could even make out the Gateway Arch, More as a shadow against the lights since it is no lit well enough to be visible at night from 30,000+ feet above it.

I followed the path of I-64 to just about Evansville where I lost it in the clouds. We landed after midnight, collected our bags, hoofed it out to the far end of Row J by the fence in the remote parking lot. Had a moments pause as the engine hesitated turning over, but it fired and hasn't done it since. Dropped Lynda and the baggage at the house and turned around and headed back to work. Thus ended the vacation.
 

Posted: Tue - June 27, 2006 at 08:59 AM          

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