Popcorn Clouds

OK, first, there is no such thing as "popcorn clouds."  I just made that up, because the clouds did remind me of popcorn.  The weather from JFK to LAX was above clouds, all the way.  Our route was different this time - I asked the pilot when we landed why we took the southern route - almost direct from JFK to Little Rock, Arkansas, and then almost directly west to Los Angeles.  The pilot said that there was a lot of weather around the Chicago area so we avoided it by taking the southern route.  Also we were not flying into the jet stream, so we arrived in record time for a westbound trip - 5 hours and 10 minutes!  And we got to see these scattered cumulus clouds all the way to the horizon, for a good part of the trip.