This was written during the flight, but for obvious internet connectivity reasons and the fact that my computer is just now finally charging again, here it is...
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Here are a few pictures from my flight! Beautiful for quite some time – looped around Boston Harbor then headed out over Massachusetts, looking down on the Berkshires. Then over southern New York - we saw the Finger Lakes! I had no idea how large they are. Then the cloud cover set in, it was hard to see much of the ground anymore. So many levels of clouds – we were flying through some wispy clouds so there was a period of bumps, but you could still see one level of high flying clouds, and another level closer to the ground that were lots of little bumps, of a rose color.
Unfortunately my TV stopped working less than halfway through the flight – while I had stopped it on Bravo, there was only so much real housewives I could take! (Hard to believe, I know.) Switched seats to attempt to get a working TV, but that one wasn't changing channels either. I gave up and switched to Mad Men and some WSRP work.
Next a storm! I had seen a tornado warning and other storm warnings for Missouri when watching the Weather Channel, and hoped that we would avoid them – not so much! About a half hour of rough going through dark clouds. Thank gosh for Mad Men Season 3, “My Old Kentucky Home” – the episode always puts me in a good mood! Now we’re out of the storm, but it’s still quite dark and lightning to our right (North). We’re flying a bit higher than I had expected, over 38,000 feet, but I’m guessing that’s because of the storm. (Yes, I am a nervous nerd who has tracked this flight for two weeks prior to taking it, don’t mess.)
The lightning is actually a pretty amazing thing to see. Mostly flashes in clouds far away, but you can make out an occasional line of electricity. Made even more interesting now that I can see a city below the lightning clouds. From looking at the LiveMap I’m guessing its Tulsa or something nearby.
Now for Mad Med episode “Seven Twenty Three,” which I found out from obsessively watching “Inside Mad Men” snippets for the whole third season, is done in the style of film noir. Definitely one of my faves.
Still lots of lightning to the north – I will be extremely happy when we see more ground and fewer clouds! Over Oklahoma now, probably going over the northern boxy part of Texas, then New Mexico, then Arizona, and then to California! I’ve decided that I will feel much better when it gets to be midnight Eastern Time. That means that we’ll have less than an hour to go, and be about the length of my typical flight between BOS and BWI! From what I’ve seen of recent routes, the initial descent starts around 40 minutes before landing.
There is a sprawling metropolis to our north now (well, actually I have no idea how big it is, because my sense of scale up here is way off, but it seems pretty big!). The LiveMap of the kid in front of me I keep checking is going in and out – I’d like to get a better idea of where we are, from the close-up map view. Oh – it might be Wichita, Kansas! Look at that! Pretty cool.
Back to work and Mad Men – in about two hours we should be quite close to San Diego! So excited!
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The rest of the flight was fine - couldn't see much over New Mexico and Arizona. I was hoping the flight was actually on time so it would still be light out going over the desert, but oh well. Landing in San Diego was cool - cloudy up until just a few minutes before touchdown, but then bam! You come out of the clouds and see the city around you. The airport is also super close to the downtown area, which with Logan, BWI, and other airports I frequent is not the case.
I also found out, upon landing via my Twitter feed, that a cross-country flight from IAD (Dulles, near DC) to LAX hit major turbulence over the Midwest and that 30 people were injured. Must have been close to the storm we went through, or the lightning we were seeing to the North - crazy stuff! I'm glad it didn't happen to us!
And my fear of flying gets better with every flight - that wasn't so bad, and here I am! :D
