May 19

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It was our first time to fly Southwest. We definitely would again. We left on time, got there early, and the plane was half empty. Excellent. Just be sure to check in 23 hours and 59 minutes before your flight takes off, so you can be at the head of the line to choose seats. Especially if the flight is not half empty.... (You can check in over the phone if you're not near a computer, and print your boarding passes after you get to the airport....)

I wonder why the tipped-up wingtips............





Turning to fly over Lake Erie.





Actually we flew over Ontario for a while before we went over Lake Erie.

I am bemused by all the tracks. Seven tracks in this one pic. They were everywhere. Wonder why...................



Some tracks were near buildings one could assume might be a school, but lots were like this. Very odd.





This is still Ontario. So clear that the fields follow the roads. This is so NOT what Alaska looks like. This is what I am accustomed to flying over. Over most of Alaska, there is no evidence of man.............. It's very different.

Turquoise water is clearly more about shallow depth than coral reefs or the salt sea......





Spaghetti roads, curving around the hills.





One of the things I love about flying (in addition to getting there in one hour instead of ten hours!) is getting to see what it looks like on the surface from this perspective.

Cool, eh?







We got to Baltimore a bit early. My parents were waiting at our gate (they'd flown in from Kansas City). We collected our rental car, and checked in to our motel. No pics, as I was navigating. It's not all that easy to find one's way around Baltimore. Thank goodness for maps *and* wordy directions (ours were from Google).

We had checked the price of the nice hotel across the street from campus, many months before graduation, and they wanted $500. A night. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My better half looked around on the web and found us a HoJo's for just over $500 for two rooms for the whole time. !!!!!!! It was about half an hour from campus, but was fine in terms of cleanliness and the neighborhood wasn't scary. It worked out well.

After leaving our luggage at the motel, we went to meet our daughter on campus. We strolled around a bit before dinner.

It is a lovely campus.

Dogwood.







Peony.





Quintessential college scene: Quad, with boys playing frisbee.

Note white columns above shirtless boy. I will show you pics taken from there in the next post.





Azalea.



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