Mostly clear in Tucson. Overcast with rain in Seattle. Overcast in Sitka with temperatures in the 30s.
I spent all of my daylight hours in airports or on planes today.
My flight departed Tucson at 8am, so we left the house at 6am. The sky brightened while I was in the airport, with the sun rising just before boarding started.
The view of the ground was obscured by clouds for much of the flight to Seattle.
I did get a bit of a look at the Grand Canyon.
Sections of Nevada were also clear. I took several photos along the way with my cell phone. GPS coordinates were saved with exif, so I could later tell where we were when I took them, which was handy for land forms I was curious about.
I spent 5+ hours in the Seattle airport. This time it was in the plan (unlike Friday’s 4+ hour delay for my later flight).
I saw a couple of pigeons while there, so made an ebird checklist to record those. Had I not, I would have had to work to find some birds in Sitka after dark in order to keep my ebird streak going. (I did stop by the channel and Swan Lake, but didn’t see or hear any birds either place. Swan Lake was still mostly iced up, which probably contributed. I suspect the waterfowl were down at the park.)
I expected the flight from Seattle north to be over clouds. It was in the beginning, but then I had mostly clear views from the northern part of Vancouver Island all the way to Ketchikan.
In the distance, I could see a pool of low clouds with a few peaks sticking above. It made me think of an ice sheet (and perhaps some 20,000 years ago, it looked a little like that).
The sun was dropping low as we landed in Ketchikan. It had set and it was too dark to see by the time we took off for Sitka. It’s more interesting to fly when I can see the ground below, but easier to rest when I can’t.
In order to keep my iNaturalist streak going, I observed a lichen growing on my railing, and moss that has come up in a container at my house.
Even though I didn’t get home until nearly 7pm, it was easy to quickly reorient after the past 3 days of being in very different circumstances. It was an enjoyably full weekend, and in some ways Thursday seems like a long time ago.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
