flight path

Stepping back into my Christmas & New Years travel (I'm back in LA now, but never posted during the trip for some reason); it's not unusual to get great views when leaving LAX, but I lucked into catching a lot of happy coincidences on this one. As we took off, I got a kick out of the particularly distinct shadow of our plane as it went over the runways of LAX and then Dockweiler Beach as we climbed over the Pacific, turning to views of tankers steaming their way into the Port of LA. We doubled back around sharper than the path I'm used to. A view of my home neighborhood of El Porto isn't unusual, but seeing the full stretch including the 3 piers of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach all in one isn't that common to me. (If you've been on one of my birthday bikepath pub crawls, that's the full route there!) Finally, while I have no idea where we were at the time, a later view of a solar farm with three fields focusing their beams into distinct centers felt like a lucky catch, too. Not pictured is the furry four-legged buddy that sat in the lap of the passenger next to me without making a noise the entire flight. Unfortunately he was faced the other way so I never got any pats in.

UPDATE: My friend James commented on Facebook that the solar farm is the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility near the California/Nevada border along I-15, which just makes it even more fascinating and interesting to me.