October 18

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My sister-in-law and brother have often had artwork done by their children as little kids displayed in their home.

It wasn't a surprise to see this piece by nephew proudly shown on the fridge.  I wondered idly what had brought it to the surface, since their move to the new house.

After walking by it (and opening the fridge door on which is is posted) for several days, I noticed the date.  Then I noticed the size of the hand print (larger than my hand..........).

Byron works in a childcare facility.  This is a new piece.  :-)  He says he copied the text from a similar piece done by one of his charges.  It gives me a chuckle every time I see it.  :-)  I'm glad I remembered to move it near a window and get its pic before we left Kansas City.



We spent the 18th just hanging out with family.  Our flight was scheduled to leave around 5:45 pm.  We had lunch at my bro and sil's, and then headed to my parents' to pick up our daughter, who stayed with her grandparents.  We left my parents' place a bit after 3:00 pm, which gave us plenty of time to return the rental car, get to the terminal, and get through security.

We boarded more or less on time, but then our flight was delayed by a broken bar on the thing that pushes planes away from terminals.  They fixed that, and determined why it broke, and fixed that, too.  We were delayed by about half an hour, and after that, all was smooth.

Here we are, successfully pushed away from the terminal, and now on our way to Detroit.

Sun, setting over the terminal.

On the end of the runway, waiting to take off.

In the air.

As always, when one points a camera at the sun, everything else appears darker than it actually was.  Can you see the light blotches, near the middle of the images?  That is light reflecting off water.........

I've lightened up the previous image, to give you a better idea of what I could actually see when I took it.  The color and look of it is all wrong, but you can see a lot of features of the landscape that I could see at the time.

See the Missouri River, curving from side to side in the middle of the image?

The Missouri again, coming down the center.

As we turned more to the east, the sun was no longer visible.  The sky was blue, and the horizon was peachy.  Do you see the crescent moon, in the upper right quadrant?

Of course the ground was more visible than might be predicted from looking at the previous image.....

This may be my most successful trip ever, for pics of my departure points from the air.  (I think it is also the first time I ever sat in the same seat -- 16 E -- coming and going....)

The Missouri River, curving around the old airport, with the big buildings of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, above it.

I spent a little time with Google maps.  I identified the Kaufman Center for the Performing Arts (two pale dome-y things near the right edge, in the top quadrant), and determined that the Arabia Steamboat Museum may well be within the limits of the image above, somewhere very near the center of the left edge of the pic.



Sixteen minutes later, it really was getting dark.

I'm told there was a good view of Chicago from the plane, but I missed it.  I sort of kept an eye out, but apparently wasn't looking at the right time (or was on the wrong side of the plane?).

A little over an hour after the previous shot, here is the Detroit metropolitan area.   I think that little white spot just above the horizon, just above the far end of the road that starts in the left bottom of the image, is the moon.

Detroit.  This is definitely the moon.  I kind of like the way this whole image is bokeh.....

Both of the above two pics were taken by the phone.  The video below was taken by the camera.

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