Flight to New York City

November 17, 2017

Jeff, Darla and Eylse arrived in the wee hours of Saturday morning and got a bit of sleep before we had to be at Atlanta Airport for a 11:30am flight. Marty dropped us off at the Airport. We lifted off with a view of downtown Atlanta. To the left of downtown, the bright triangle is the new Mercedes Arena. Elyse was the photographer for this trip to New York City.

I could point out to Elyse the gold dome of the Georgia Capitol about a third of the way in from the left, and that Georgia State University where my office is located was just to the right of the Capitol. We were blessed with a view of Stone Mountain east of Atlanta with its nice lake. We have looked down on that lake many times after hiking to the top of Stone Mountain with scout and church groups. Example is our Awana trip of 2011.

About fifteen minutes after takeoff we passed by the south end of Lake Lanier and Buford Dam, the source of the Chattahoochie River which runs through Atlanta.

The mid part of our flight was mostly in cloud, but at about an hour and ten minutes in, we got clearing and got a good westward view of the Chesapeake Bay which separates the two halves of Maryland. This is a view of Poplar Island in the bay and to the right is the southern end of Kent Island. I was surprised to see the patchwork of agricultural fields all over these complicated peninsulas and islands.

I found this intense pattern of farm fields absolutely amazing. As an old farm boy, I found it very pleasing, but it was hard to believe that they had put fields up to the water's edge all over this complicated land geometry.

We got a good view of the remarkable bridge structures on Hwy 50 crossing the Chesapeake Bay and Kent Island. Highway 50 connects Delaware and the eastern part of Maryland to western Maryland near Annapolis and then proceeds to Washington D.C. This was about an hour and ten minutes into our flight.

Along the way we got an interesting view of the Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey This was about five minutes after crossing the Chesapeake Bay, or about an hour and twenty minutes into our flight.

Five minutes later we flew by the city of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Elyse was in a good position to see the Statue of Liberty out in New York Harbor as we neared our destination. We were now at an hour and 38 minutes into our flight, almost 20 minutes from Philadelphia. So our airspeed was much slower for this stretch. Later we got to see the Lady on our boat tour of the New York harbor.

The collection and density of buildings as the south end of Manhattan Island comes into view is just overwhelming! You can just see Brooklyn Bridge under the plane wing - the first of the three bridges to Manhattan from the east.

A good view of the Brooklyn Bridge on the left and the Manhattan Bridge. We crossed the Manhattan Bridge on Sunday on our way to worship at Brooklyn Tabernacle. The area on the near side of the bridge is Brooklyn Heights.

This shows the three bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and the Williamsburg Bridge (they encouraged BMW as a mnemonic). This includes most of lower Manhattan, also referred to as "downtown". The tallest building is the One World Trade Center, in fact currently the tallest building in the western hemisphere. We visited there on Sunday.

This includes most of mid-Manhattan. The Empire State Building is close to the left. On the right, the south part of Central Park is visible. At extreme right a partial view of the Queensboro Bridge.

This shows uptown Manhattan, including most of the length of Central Park, and a nice view of the Queensboro Bridge. To the right, north of Central Park, is Harlem. Jeff, Darla and Elyse visited there on Sunday.

This view of uptown Manhattan and Central Park is within a couple of minutes of touchdown at LaGuardia. This shows most of the length of Central Park and another nice view of the Queensboro Bridge. Carnegie Hall is a couple of blocks to the south (left) of the end of Central Park, and our hotel, the Crown Plaza Times Square, is about six blocks further south. The really skinny tall building is close to our hotel.

	We were met by Mac MacDonald of the Celebration Concert Tours and sheparded with our luggage to a waiting bus for transport to our hotel.

Thanks to Elyse for providing the photos of our trip to New York City.