Michigan, Coast to Coast and Back Again

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
18 Sep 2004	N21481	0D1 (South Haven, MI) - D95 (Lapeer, MI) - AZO (Kalamazoo, MI) - D95 - 0D1	5.5	249.3

I flew from the west side of Michigan to the east to pick up my mother and her friend Bruce for a trip to the Air Zoo.  Along the way, I captured two of my favorite pictures of all time.

The morning eastbound flight under a thin overcast layer revealed this quilt-like vista southwest of Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Fall is an amazing time in farm country. For most of the year, fields tend to be the same color when viewed from above: white in winter, brown in spring, green during the summer. But the fall harvest brings out an amazing variety of color across the landscape. I suspect that the overhead cloud layer and low angle of the morning sun may have contributed a quality of light that accentuated the color differences more than usual.

This is Lansing Capital City Airport (LAN) in Lansing, MI.  Sure, I've never actually landed at Lansing, nor have I really ever wanted or needed to.  Positioned in the middle of Michigan, I pass over Lansing when flying from South Haven or Kalamazoo to visit family on the east side.  This photo shows a portion (ok...most of) of the airport that was taken looking north at 5500 feet.  The airport has an interesting, not-quite symmetrical design.