From Sea to Shining Sea

So I did one of my favorite things again, flying from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, while looking out the airplane window with my toy camera, and looking for photographs.  I did take careful records of where each of these photographs were taken, but I realized the "where" is not important.  So I will make brief comments on each photo.  I did take some photographs on takeoff and climb out from New York but they are not included here.  This is a photo of a small town in Indiana.  I found that the snow we have had on the East Coast went all the way to St. Louis, Missouri.

This is mid-continent, and it is a area where the snow has fallen, but the darker areas are areas of forested lands in between farmer's fields and the dark trees obscure the fallen snow. From the patterns you can see that the trees grow where there is water - rivers and streams.

This is an area with a winding river running through an area of farmer's fields, and forested areas and roads, but the curving river stands out because it is not a straight line.

This is Mount Dora in New Mexico, and it is a dormant volcano.  I think it would not be obvious if it had not been covered in snow.

This is a wonderful geology lesson, showing the different layers of deposits over geologic time.  The dark layer on the top would be the last layer deposited, with a white colored layer underneath, deposited earlier in time, and then the red layers underneath deposited earliest of all.

Snow capped mountains.  As we flew further west we entered a mountainous area, and when the snow storms come through, the highest mountains skim the snow out of the storm, and the rest of the mountains are untouched.

This is one of the more barren areas which appear uninhabited.  But you can see higher areas which are now mesas, and the lower areas washed out by the water that used to flow here so long ago.