Growing up in North Georgia, I never really had a chance to travel very far. Even now, I still rarely travel outside the Southern Appalachians. I finally got the chance to get on an airplane for the first time just a few weeks ago.
This trip took me all the way to the west coast in Portland, Oregon.
I definitely had the nervous jitters the night before my first flight. I flew out of the small, regional Asheville Airport, making the crowds minimal and putting me on a smaller plane for the first part of the trip. I was incredibly excited to get some photos from the air, and after boarding, I managed to get myself calmed down and prepared for the epic views sure to come.
Luckily for me, we took off at sunrise.
One thing I hadn’t banked on was how difficult it would be to get pictures through the airplane window. They are often somewhat dirty and quite thick, making my Sony a bit useless. I took all of these photos with my phone.
We saw some gorgeous clouds on the way out to my layover in Dallas. This was taken somewhere over western Tennessee.
From the sky, I got my first view of the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy over much of the mountain range, thanks to a large ongoing snowstorm, but we did catch some views of the eastern range through the clouds.
We touched down in the rain in Portland and managed to sneak some hiking in during the trip, but I’ll share some photos from that next week.
After a few days out west, I headed back to the airport for my return trip home. While the flights out were uneventful, the flight from Portland to Dallas was anything but.
On the way out, we had some absolutely beautiful weather which allowed me to get some phenomenal views of the volcanoes. I was on the wrong side of the plane to see Mt. Hood, but I zoomed in for this shot of Mt. Adams.
No photo can fully capture the scale of these massively large mountains.
One very cool thing was getting to see the Salt Flats of Utah. From the air, they appear as huge light blue areas, although the haze makes the photos show an unfortunate blue hue to the entire image.
I got my favorite image from the air during the return trip over the Rockies when the weather improved. It features some of the tall peaks sneaking through some low clouds/fog that had settled that morning.
I got to take in one more national landmark on this flight when we flew over the northern reaches of Bryce Canyon. Even from the air, it appears huge and impressive, especially covered in snow.
Eventually, I hope to visit this on the ground.
From Portland to Dallas, we flew over snow and straight into spring’s severe weather season. There were strong, tornadic storms happening over eastern Texas when we arrived.
After sitting in a holding pattern for a short time due to a storm directly over the airport, we made an unsuccessful landing attempt. A quick circle around the airport was probably the least fun thing I’ve ever done, with the plane bouncing up and down.
I saw one funnel cloud off in the distance, but the shot below of the shelf cloud we flew into was the scariest part.
After a long layover in Dallas, I boarded my final flight home. It was at night over a cloudy landscape. My journey ended safely, with plenty of memories and photos to share.
Next week, I’ll share some spectacular views from my hike around Silver Falls State Park in Oregon.
See you on the trail (or in the air)!
