Hawaii - Part 1

Airplane Window Pics!

Our recent trip to Hawaii was wonderful! Travel came first. On long flights from Virginia to LA, and from LA to Hawaii, there was no escape from more than 10 hours in cramped airline seats. But why watch a crummy movie on a small distant screen with poor sound quality if you can look out the airplane window? When clouds cleared somewhere over the Midwest this nice mixture of agriculture and hills appeared below:

Numerous agricultural irrigation circles were also visible further on:

Not long after the clouds cleared I began to notice a bright spot under the plane opposite the Sun. The bright spot moved across the landscape below as the plane moved on. It may have been a rather dim glory appearing on thin, nearly transparent clouds beneath the plane. It could also have been merely a light inside the airplane reflected in the window. The bright spot appears just to the left of center below. Can you see it?

A collection of wind turbines appeared next. (Click on the image to see them in more detail.)

Soon we crossed over the Rocky Mountains on our way to LA:

Over the southwestern U.S. I saw this colorful canyon with hanging clouds along its walls:

In the middle of desert an incongruous smoke stack added white smoke to floating clouds:

Scenes were not as nice on our return trip from LA to DC. The plane took off heading north from the LA airport and initially headed out over the Pacific. I could see the Pacific coastline just north of the airport:

The plane then made a 270 degree turn in order to head southeast. During the turn I believe I could see Anacapa Island as the Sun approached the western horizon:

As we headed eastward over land once more we passed interesting housing patterns in southern California.

Sunset rapidly approaches as you fly east late in the day. At our latitude near 34 degrees the day/night line moves westward relative to the ground at approximately 860 MPH. Our plane headed toward this approaching line at roughly 500 MPH. So sunset was approaching the plane at about 1360 MPH! Very soon it was dark and picture taking out the window had to end.

The Hawaii trip blog will continue next week.