A few more shots from the early-May SF to Pittsburgh run, with the city itself above showing more visibly where the two rivers merge to create the Ohio River (which is the third of the “three rivers”), and below where it’s mostly the Ohio, plus some midwestern and great plains aerial views.
Last shot I took before landing back in NL from the US, back on 14 May; and first shot as we took off on 8 September. The intervening months may have been the longest stretch without any flights that I’ve had since I moved here. As these pages attest, I got out and about quite a lot in that period but always by train. Carbon-footprint reduction plans in action. 🙂
l arrived home late Friday in Amsterdam, and am posting here the first aerial shots I recall ever managing to take that actually show the Coxs Bazar beach from the air. The skies were wonderfully clear, my seat in the plane perfect aside from one fleck on the window (which you’ll only see in one or two of the gallery below, because I’ve mostly managed to crop the photos to eliminate it), so these are photos as the plane flew southward from this northernmost shot to the final views, at the bottom, as we banked east then north for the return to Dhaka on Tuesday last week. There’ll be more seashells and others to come before we run out of our stock, but these will help you imagine those tiny shells in their larger context :-). Oh, and the selfie is the first time I ever succumbed to the most-common trope for people landing in or departing from Cox: everyone takes a selfie. Most folks visiting Cox are tourists, mostly Bangladeshi honeymooners and families. So I’m smiling, because the weather was nice, the visit lovely, and I was finally doing that most stereotypical of Cox airport things, the selfie.
I’ve a feeling that’s a ski area peaking out from behind the clouds over Colorado during the May flight, and below are a few last ones from either eastern Utah or Western Colorado, same flight.
If there’s snow on them in the desert in May, then they’re mountains. 🙂 Probably Utah, but maybe Nevada, still from that SF->Pittsburgh flight in May. Hoping for clear skies en route home to see interesting mountain views (such as this) along the way during my daytime return flights, or we’ll have to let this series go dormant ’til whenever I next get close enough to photograph something I can call a mountain…
The Dutch coastline at Ijmuiden, early morning May 14th, as our plane flew north – northwest across the North Sea after crossing the islands of Ireland and Great Britain on its flight path from Chicago to Amsterdam. The most common landing path I’ve experienced is up this way, sharp right turn over the land, then lining up for the runways in a more or less due-south pattern which I can watch from the windows of my apartment :-). Below, three photos taken each a bit later on the same trajectory.
If your browser loads this as I hope, you’ll see one large photo above that shows Lake Tahoe at the top (north) and the snowy Sierra Nevadas below it; one large photo at the bottom which looks back west and north across the arid western Nevada landscape, to Lake Tahoe and the Sierras. And in between, ten photos I took during the six minutes that elapsed as our plane flew across the Sierra Nevadas, leaving behind California and beginning its flight across Nevada.
These two were taken an hour apart as our plane flew east from SF to Pittsburgh, with Pittsburgh itself only coming into view more than three hours after the shot below. Since I now we flew just south of Provo not too much before the above shot, I’m guessing some river-junction town in eastern Utah for the one above, since I don’t think we flew this close to Grand Junction or had come far enough east yet. The one below…no clue, an hour east along the same flight somewhere in Colorado along the North Platte, most likely. No in-flight tracker on this plane, and my phone’s GPS wasn’t working very well or I’d have taken screen shots of where I was when I took each photo…
The last shots I’ve not yet posted from our May departure from SFO en route to Pittsburgh. Still plenty left, of snowy Sierra and Rocky mountains and so on. But this is another farewell to the bay-area shots from my most recent trip. For those unfamiliar — open a map of SF and the bay, and then it’ll make sense. SF city itself is that white area in the upper left, while Alameda island is in the middle right, below the wing. The rounded bay you to the top middle is San Pablo bay, which we’ve shown you before – it’s part of the SF Bay but separately named b/c as you see it’s a bit distinct, having various peninsulas and such to define it a bit more clearly.
Above, the piece of the southeastern coast of England, and below 15 minutes later with the Dutch coast dimly visible behind many offshore wind turbines. All from mid-May’s return to A’dam after the US weeks.
Pacific Coast top left, SF bay above and below, city of SF skyline quite visible below, to the right of Mt Tam(alpais) which is on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Both from my flight out on May 3rd.
If look closely at the above photo, you’ll see a bay coming in from the Pacific at the top right, carving inland to the top-center. That’s Monterey Bay. I’m posting all the remaining photos from our mid-April approach to SFO, following the flight from Amsterdam which, as we’ve shown you in prior posts, cut over the norther half of Greenland before plunging south along the Pacific Coast. This photo was taken in the midst of our complex circling in order to line up for (north-facing) approach to SFO. If you’re interested in better understanding the geography, just open a map and see how the “peninsula” sits between the (more enclosed) SF bay and the open, further south Monterey Bay. Here we’re beginning a clockwise circle from our southbound course, so I’m looking south and we’re still turning west and north. The shots below follow the rest of that trajectory in order, although the first shot was taken a minute or so before the one above. Enjoy 🙂
Above, Mt Rainier from on high. Another contribution from Sam: thanks! Below, more snowy mountains, this time in northern Greenland as I flew by in April en route to SF. Theme = snowy mountains, to mentally cool those sweating through hot days :-).
l arrived home late Friday in Amsterdam, and am posting here the first aerial shots I recall ever managing to take that actually show the Coxs Bazar beach from the air. The skies were wonderfully clear, my seat in the plane perfect aside from one fleck on the window (which you’ll only see in one or two of the gallery below, because I’ve mostly managed to crop the photos to eliminate it), so these are photos as the plane flew southward from this northernmost shot to the final views, at the bottom, as we banked east then north for the return to Dhaka on Tuesday last week. There’ll be more seashells and others to come before we run out of our stock, but these will help you imagine those tiny shells in their larger context :-). Oh, and the selfie is the first time I ever succumbed to the most-common trope for people landing in or departing from Cox: everyone takes a selfie. Most folks visiting Cox are tourists, mostly Bangladeshi honeymooners and families. So I’m smiling, because the weather was nice, the visit lovely, and I was finally doing that most stereotypical of Cox airport things, the selfie.
If your browser loads this as I hope, you’ll see one large photo above that shows Lake Tahoe at the top (north) and the snowy Sierra Nevadas below it; one large photo at the bottom which looks back west and north across the arid western Nevada landscape, to Lake Tahoe and the Sierras. And in between, ten photos I took during the six minutes that elapsed as our plane flew across the Sierra Nevadas, leaving behind California and beginning its flight across Nevada.
If look closely at the above photo, you’ll see a bay coming in from the Pacific at the top right, carving inland to the top-center. That’s Monterey Bay. I’m posting all the remaining photos from our mid-April approach to SFO, following the flight from Amsterdam which, as we’ve shown you in prior posts, cut over the norther half of Greenland before plunging south along the Pacific Coast. This photo was taken in the midst of our complex circling in order to line up for (north-facing) approach to SFO. If you’re interested in better understanding the geography, just open a map and see how the “peninsula” sits between the (more enclosed) SF bay and the open, further south Monterey Bay. Here we’re beginning a clockwise circle from our southbound course, so I’m looking south and we’re still turning west and north. The shots below follow the rest of that trajectory in order, although the first shot was taken a minute or so before the one above. Enjoy 🙂
(so much world, so little time....) 