My Photo Delayed Our Flight

 We always board the plane early. Beth moves slowly, she can be unsteady on her feet, and she always stops at the end of the ramp and hesitates to step off the ramp and onto the plane... we've found it's easier for her if we just get on early. I get the window seat, Beth prefers to be between us and Chuck likes the aisle.

 

On our flight to Anaheim we got settled in our seats here in Seattle and I looked out the window. I usually take a few pictures of the airport, just as a starting point to our trip. Plus it helps me find the pictures faster when I'm scrolling through my phone later on. But this time something caught my eye.

 

You know how you have that debate in your head? That's what I did:

"That's not right, maybe I should take a picture." 

"No, no. I'm sure they know about it."

"I don't know, I think I should show it to someone."

 

I wouldn't say I'm a frequent flyer but I've flown enough to know that's not how the wing is supposed to look. So I took a picture. Now the flight attendants are helping people with their luggage, answering questions, so I waited until one was just walking through and asked her, "Is this normal?" I don't know why I asked it that way. I knew it wasn't normal, but we were getting close to departure and I think I was just starting to get nervous.

 

 

She looked very surprised and headed to the front of the plane. She came back a few minutes later and asked if she could take a picture of my picture. Then headed back to the front.

By now everyone is on board and we're just waiting. Then the pilot comes back to our seats and asks if he could take a look himself. We get up and he looks out the window. He looked right at me and thanked me for telling them about it.

 

We settle back in our seats and I see the pilot outside looking at the wing. Different people are coming to look at it and by now other passengers have started taking pictures of whats going on.

 

 

A few minutes later he comes back to our seats and says everything's okay. "Can you see how clean the cut is? The maintenance team did that. It happened a few weeks ago so it wasn't on the current maintenance record that I reviewed today, so I was a little shocked to see your picture. But they know about it and the plane's been flying with it that way. They're planning to replace the flap soon when the plane goes into the hanger for a complete overhaul. But thank you for bringing it to my attention!"

 

He headed back to the cockpit, and made a short announcement about it over the intercom. Even though we took off a little late, we had a very nice flight to LAX. 
 

Having Fun With Will Boeing

Chuck got us tickets to the Boeing Future of Flight for my birthday. I've been enamored by planes, the Space Shuttle (when it was flying) and I just love being around them. This was a small museum and we were only there for an hour or two but we had fun!

I didn't realize the Vertical Stabilizer was this big! See me in the corner?

 They had a replica of the Destiny Module that's at the International Space Station.

How they go months sleeping upright I'll never know.

We went out on the sky deck and got to see a few planes land. 

In the second picture you can barely see Mt Rainier on the right.

This is the Assembly Building.  

Each one of those bay doors is large enough for a complete plane to go through.

 

 Before we left we asked one of the receptionists to take some pictures of us by the photo op area. You can tell she's done this a lot because we sure had fun!

Perspective

I've always loved photography and I've realized in the last few years that I get it from my dad. Most of the time he was the one behind the camera taking pictures of the family, or our vacations or of flamingos. 

We were all watching home movies one time and most of them were of flamingos. Forget me and my sisters, we have hours of film of those crazy pink birds standing on one leg... we never let my dad live it down.

Now that he's gone, I watch those movies and smile. 

I have his Brownie, the camera he used to record our memories in the 1960's. I also have my grandpa's (mom's dad) Polaroid.

One thing I love is Aerial Photography. The perspective it gives you is phenomenal! We took our girls to the Grand Canyon, I think it was in 1999 and I took this picture the day after a monsoon. The day before you couldn't see a thing!

 

And I think Peter was the one who took this picture. The Grand Canyon from 30,000 feet.

We've been to Yosemite. I think everyone who visits has a photo from this very spot because it's an over-look just as you're heading into the valley. 😊

El Capitan is the massive rock face on the left and you can just see the tip of Half Dome in the center of the picture. When Chuck and I were coming home from San Diego in February we flew right over it!

 

Maybe this will help...

 

And Mount St. Helens. It erupted back in 1980. Chuck, Beth and I went there a few years back and my camera wasn't working right, so I'm sorry the picture didn't turn out well. Honestly, it was probably more operator error than anything else. 😁

And from an airplane seat high above the earth...

I just love the different perspective an airplane can give you. Sometimes I'm blown away by the fact that people can fly. Just hop aboard and up we go! It's mind boggling to me but man, I love it!

Do you like to fly?

Do you fly very often?

Who takes the pictures in your family?

We'd Been Waiting Since November!

Some of you had asked what Beth was drinking in my Frightening Part post. She doesn't like coffee so when we go to Starbucks she'll either get a hot chocolate or a Strawberry Frappuccino. It's just ice, milk and strawberries. No coffee, more like a shake. I think some frappuccinos have coffee in them but not the strawberry one. I'm not a coffee drinker either so these are a good alternative. They're SO good!

Last Saturday Ally and I went to The Museum of Flight just south of Seattle. We were supposed to go back in November but they closed down just 2 days before our scheduled day due to an uptick in covid cases. So we were so excited on the drive down! I've always wanted to see the inside of an air traffic control tower and I didn't know there was one that you could go into there! Ally was so anxious to show it to me! We got inside, they took our temp, we got our wrist bands, made our way up the stairs... and it was closed. Due to covid I guess, too small of a room? I don't know. We were so bummed. There was one area of the museum that had a full sized 747 in it, a Concorde, Air Force One... so many amazing planes but somehow we ended up missing it. We never did see them so I told her we'll just have to come back!

We did see the Great Gallery, the Space Gallery, the WWII area and of course bought a few things in the gift shop! 

She's looking at a model of an aircraft carrier

This is the Great Gallery

There are so many planes you can't get them all in one shot. These are actual, full-sized planes. This room is huge.

 We walked across the sky bridge to the Space Gallery

Here we're standing in the open cargo bay of a Space Shuttle

 

I think the Space Gallery was our favorite part! 

I do love hanging out with this girl!