Down Below

View from the window seat

It’s a three and a half hour flight from Las Vegas back home to Grand Rapids. Unlike many of the other travelers who nap or watch movies on their cellphone, I spend most of this time looking out of the window.

I’ve been an aviation enthusiast since I was a young kid. Later on we had a company that made flight simulator software. So all-in-all I’ve had many opportunities to observe the skies and terrain from above for both hobby and profession. In short, I enjoy flying.

Follow me it you too have this interest.

AAY Flight 2177 from LAS to GRR takes us over the Rockies and the central part of the USA.

For the most part on this January day the skies were cloudless so I had a nice view of the scenery and terrain during daylight.

Here we are taxiing for takeoff. The huge pyramid is the Luxor Casino Resort.
The airport is adjacent to the iconic LV Strip so you can see some of the city’s many casinos.
During takeoff you have a nice view of The Strip
The Sphere is one of Vega’s newest attractions.
As the aircraft turns you can see the Las Vegas Speedway to the north.
Now turning east we pass by the Mountain View Solar facility.
Echo Bay is part of Lake Mead which supplies most of the water and electrical power (with the help of the Hoover Dam) for LV
Heading northeast we see the Colorado River snaking through the White Canyon area in northern AZ/southern UT
This is the San Juan River in Utah feeding the Colorado River and eventually Lake Powell
As a “nerd” I ook for airports below. This is the Montrose Muni Airport (MTJ) in Colorado
Cheyenne County Muni Airprot (SYF) in Kansas
Central Nebraska Regional AIrport (GRI) Grand Island, NE
As we fly over Iowa we caught this guy just passing by
Arriving in Grand Rapids we can see the marshallers working in the 10-degree temperature

After leaving a warm and sunny Las Vegas we arrived to western Michigan’s snow and cold.

Another flight completed and a bunch more photographs for my archives. Can you tell that I’m an aviation geek?

Written by:

Arnie Lee

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