A trip for a conference in Santa Rosa, California afforded the opportunity for another view of the Golden Gate Bridge, a swing over to the Sonoma Coast, a visit to an extensive wind farm at Altamont, and a delightful trip to Yosemite in the snow.

Rod was invited to speak at a Local Physics Alliances conference in Santa Rosa, so we were off to San Francisco again. It was a bit hazy as we took off from Atlanta on December 1, but most of the trip was crystal clear. Starting in eastern Colorado, above right, there was snow all the way to California.

I very much enjoyed flying over the sharp ridges of the Rocky Mountains, covered with snow. It was interesting to watch for roads like the one showing in the picture at right. You could reflect upon how small the human creations were compared to the majestic snow-covered mountains. In the image below left we noted that the snow was getting deeper as we moved over the central part of the Rocky Mountains. A small town is visible in the picture below left. That is sort of like my visualizations of Beaver Creek and Vail from Jeff's descriptions of them. This kind of setting gives easy access to the ski slopes above.

I took this photo at about the time the pilot announced that we were flying over Yosemite, so this may well be a view of part of the Yosemite National Park. With these views in mind, we were inspired to see Yosemite in the snow later.