December 6, 2018 -- flying home to The Mitten

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1:43  On the plane; right on schedule.

1:59  Taking off.

1:59  Interesting clouds.  I love flying....

2:00

2:01

2:03  A bit of snow.

Closer crop of the lower left corner of the above.  Someone is contour-plowing.....

An even closer look.  It's my understanding that this is a more-responsible way to take care of the land.

2:04   More snow.

2:15  No more snow.  And no contour-plowing, either.

Closer crop of the above.

2:26   The mighty Mississippi.  I spent a bunch of time with Google maps, trying to decide where this was.

A screen shot from Google maps.........

2:32  Snow, again.

2:41  Getting close to Chicago.

Closer crop of the lower right of the above.

2:44  Chigago.  Here's my "straight out of camera" shot.  (the phone camera)

Same as above, post-processed in Photoshop Elements to bring up the contrast.

A much closer crop of the above.  Isn't it amazing that the phone camera, with its itty bitty lens, can get this sort of detail from 35,000 feet and through not-so-clean three layers of plexiglas?

Another screen shot from Google maps.........

2:45  Leaving Chicago to fly over the pretty-big water.

Close crop from the left edge of the above.  Chicago.

3:09  Coming down, near Detroit.

3:14  Looking east toward Canada, as we approach Detroit Metro.

3:15

Closer crop from sort of close the the middle of the above -- someone else coming in on the other runway.

3:16  Poor old Detroit.  A perfect storm of auto-plants having to compete with Japan, no public transportation, abusive taxation, white flight, and who knows what else, absolutely decimated Detroit.  It was the fifth largest city in the nation, at 3,000,000 souls, I believe, and is now much closer to around 750,000.

For a while it looked like a war zone, with thousands of empty houses falling down, and/or burnt up.

Then they removed all of the trashed buildings, leaving blocks and blocks with no houses, or with just a few houses.  You can see this clearly at the bottom of the next image.

Closer crop of the above.  They're not letting it all grow wild, but these totally empty blocks are eerie and weird.  They could be parks, they could be gardens, but they're just ... empty..............

3:17  Landing at Detroit Metro.  Almost all of the buildings you see are the Delta terminals.

4:21  Taxiing.

4:52  On the way to A2 from DTW.  Dec. 5 had excellent evening skies in Kansas City.  Dec. 6 had excellent evening skies in southeast Michigan.  Same weather pattern?  Could be..........

4:54

4:55

4:57

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