pictures from a plane

It's about 7:30 on a grey, drizzly Victoria morning. Sitting by the window in the club lounge perched on the 16th floor of the Marriott, I can watch the skies lighten and the city start waking up. Conrad is still in bed, which is a good place for him on a long weekend morning. It's good to be back in Victoria after 4 years away.

25 hours from now I'll be launching myself on a 26.2 mile course through parts of downtown, then along the waterfront through Oak Bay and almost as far as Cadboro Bay. The names of cities, suburbs, neighbourhoods, and streets resonate powerfully with me from my four years of undergrad at UVic. I will always love being in Victoria.

Lots of photos to blog, but I'll open with some shots I took on the flight from Chicago to Vancouver. It was a remarkably smooth flight. We pulled back from the gate on time, and we landed 18 minutes early. There was almost no turbulence. I got to watch Harry Potter 5 once again. Lunch was reasonable, too. Heck, even clearing customs and getting our bag and rental car all took very little time. Great good fortune in traveling!

After the movie, I was reading on and off. I've been re-reading An Instance of the Fingerpost, and at times it gets a little dense. At times. Good book, though. Anyway, I had a window seat, and as we approached snow-covered mountains, I took some shots. Understand: I live in Chicago, but I am not a flatlander at heart. Seeing the mountains is reassuring to me.





I resumed taking shots as we flew out over Boundary Bay, finally leaving the US behind.




As we flew over the Vancouver metro area from east to west I took more shots. The Fraser River winding its way past Surrey, New Westminster, Vancouver, and Richmond as it achieved its delta. The construction (you can see the mostly-complete Skytrain bridge to the airport in one shot), the still vibrant industrial nature of the river despite the masses of housing - it used to be a lot of rich farmland down there. I also love the plane's shadow forming a small, recurrent icon through a number of shots.