PART TWO OF MY FLIGHT FROM PHX>SLC>BWI
We pick up where we left off, with a picture of the Wasatch Range.
I got one last picture of Downtown Salt Lake City, but it's not as good as the ones from inside the terminal.
On the hillsides is the neighborhood of The Avenues, although sometimes the hilly portions are called the Greater Avenues.
Once we taxied down the runway a little bit, I had a nice view of the Utah State Capitol, and the historic Block U on Mount Van Cott was visible.
As we prepared to take to the air, the University of Utah came into view to the right of the Capitol.
We flew past the suburbs of Bountiful and Woods Cross.
I saw the interchange on the Legacy Parkway for West 500 South in Woods Cross. What kind of a name is that for a street? 500 South?
I took a couple pictures of the marshland near the Great Salt Lake, thinking that I was along the edge of the lake. Alas, I never really saw the lake.
We soon flew over the town of Farmington. In the center is Lagoon Amusement Park.
Turning eastward, we flew over the Wasatch Range.
Exit 185 on Interstate 80 in Utah, for Castle Rock (a place that doesn't show up on a map). Castle Rock is apparently a ghost town that started in 1860 with a pony express stop. This part of northeast Utah must've been a big pony express area, because as I searched the pony express once my curiosity was piqued, and
this map shows multiple places of interest within an hour of each other. Here's what the area looks like from the section of Interstate that I flew over:
Google Street View
This was somewhere over Wyoming, east of Evanston.
The first town we flew over, after leaving the Salt Lake City area, was Mountain View, Wyoming.
There weren't many towns to see, though.
I still auto-corrected the pictures to bring out more colors.
Wyoming was looking pretty gray. Westerners might find it drab, especially compared to the lushness of the eastern United States in the summer, and there are certainly more vibrant colors in the West, but it was still pretty interesting to at least fly over.
We passed the Flaming Gorge, which carries the Green River and Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
After flying over the Green River, we approached Cooper Ridge. Cooper Ridge is located
HERE, and you can see where Wyoming Route 430 goes up Cooper Ridge via a ravine at the very right of the second photo.
On the other side of Cooper Ridge, but slightly north near the Black Buttes, are what appeared to me to be strip mines. I took these pictures partly because the mines were interesting, but also to help myself figure out what I flew over later. These mines are between Sweeney Ranch and Bitter Creek. What, you never heard of those big cities before? Let me show you where they are then:
HERE. While looking for this place, I came across a picture on Google Earth of the
Black Butte Overland Stage Stop.
After passing the mines, the plane flew over the Great Divide Basin. I'm not sure if these places are in the basin, where the Great Continental Divide splits into two, but they're at least close.
The next town that we flew over was Saratoga, Wyoming.
Snow was coming down on the higher peaks in the Medicine Bow Mountains. This is likely Elk Mountain, which is 11,162 feet (3,402 m) high.
We crossed over Interstate 80 west of Laramie. This is exit 279 in far eastern Carbon County, with Cooper Cove Road running north towards the bottom of the picture.
Some of Wyoming was pretty nondescript, although higher elevations already had snow on the ground.
There was some kind of plateau of mountain ridge
HERE.
I bet no one lives anywhere in this picture.
Auto-correct and true color, yet again.
In Goshen County, Wyoming, is a butte called Bear Mountain. I got the eastern half of the butte in this picture.
Just east of Bear Mountain is the town of La Grange, Wyoming. No, this isn't the same La Grange as mentioned in
ZZ Top's song.
Jagged canyons and mountains still dotted the landscape as we began to fly over the Great Plains.
We flew over the little village of Broadwater, Nebraska.
Lake C.W. McConaughy, on the North Platte River in western Nebraska. The reservoir was formed when Kingsley Dam was constructed between 1936 and 1941 on the river.
I got one last picture of the Great Plains before I decided to take a nap. I love taking pictures from a plane, but I was up early and got off to a bad start missing my original flight, and there was a lot of cloud cover anyway, so some sleep was in order.
Once I woke up from my nap, we flew over Morgantown, West Virginia.
Next was Maryland's panhandle. Deep Creek Lake is in the middle.
We then continued on over the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains. This first picture, I believe, is is over an area southeast of Oakland, Maryland.
These two pictures are over West Virginia somewhere.
We crossed over the tip of Virginia. North Mountain is here curling to the right of the picture, and is in Frederick County, Virginia, which is the northwesternmost county.
West Virginia and Virginia share a border along that mountaintop in the distance there.
West Virginia Route 9 goes through one of the state's panhandles. Charles Town, West Virginia (not to be confused with Charleston), is in the upper right.
We flew right past Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Harper's Ferry is famous for John Brown's raid, which was a pivotal event in 1859 that helped fuel the beginning of the Civil War.
I did a thread for Harper's Ferry in 2009, but the links to the pictures are dead now.
East of Harper's Ferry are two mountains: on the left is Short Hill Mountain, with an elevation of 1,450 feet (441 m). You westerners are probably laughing at that elevtation. Loudon Heights, or Loudon Mountain, is on the right.
Loudon Heights, on the right, carries the border between West Virginia and Virginia on it. Maryland is at the bottom, on the other side of the river. So there are three states in this picture!
Here's one thing that's amazing about the Appalachian Mountains. You have a mountain ridge. Yes, it's not as big as mountains in the West. It's a continuous ridge, except that a river goes right through it. I'm used to seeing this with the Susquehanna Water Gaps where the Susquehanna River cuts through five ridges of the Appalachian Mountains. You can see pictures I have of these here:
Profile view in the spring, with a Statue of Liberty replica from 1986;
Profile view of another ridge in the spring;
Profile view of the first mountain ridge, with the Statue of Liberty again;
Profile view of the second ridge, but in summer;
A view of the ridges the long way, with cuts made by the river;
Another view, downstream, of how the river cuts through the mountain ridges. I always wonder, when I see these, how the river got past the mountain without wearing it down farther on each side.
We then flew over Frederick, Maryland's southern suburban area.
I knew we were flying over Frederick because I saw their minor league baseball stadium. I've driven through Frederick before, notably when I took that day trip to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, 6 or 7 years ago, and you can see the stadium from the expressway. The stadium is Harry Grove Stadium, built in 1990 and home of the Frederick Keys. The Keys, named for Frederick County native Francis Scott Key, play in the single-A Carolina League. My hometown Wilmington Blue Rocks also play in the Carolina League, so this is somwhat of enemy territory.
Then, Balitmore appeared on the horizon. I got some pictures of the skyline from the west. The second picture is unaltered, so you can see why I auto-corrected them.
Here's a couple bad pictures of Baltimore.
We flew over Townson, a suburb and the seat of Baltimore County (not to be confused with Baltimore City). Towson is developing a little bit of a skyline.
I got a picture of Fort McHenry, in the center on that point of land. It would've been easier to see if it was earlier in the day, but oh well. You can see I-95 and I-895 enter thei tunnels to go under the Patapsco River.
I zoomed in on Downtown Baltimore as we flew past. The neighborhood of Canton is on the right, and the 1st Mariner Building, out on its own in Southeast Baltimore near Canton, is in the foreground.
Here's a couple more pictures of Downtown, with the port in the foreground.
We flew right over Fort Carroll, in the Patapsco River. Fort Carroll was built in 1847 to help protect Baltimore from attack by sea, since Fort McHenry was the only protection at the time. Obviously, the fort is an artificial island.
I got a couple nice pictures of the Patapsco River, and the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which carries I-695, or the Baltimore Beltway.
I picked the best side of the plane to get views of Baltimore and it's skyline.
One last picture of Baltimore's skyline, with the Towson skyline in the background.
And I'm home!
So, now that I've concluded my trip out West, I'll let any Westerners who have been following this thread see where I got away from for a few days. These pictures were taken in the days before and after I went to Arizona in late October.
What does the scenery look like here? Here's a creek that goes through some of Wilmington's suburbs, called Pike Creek.
Northern Delaware is on the edge of the Piedmont Plateau. Here, it's hilly along creeks, and flatter on hilltops, because the plateau was eroded by these creeks long ago. In some areas, the hillsides are steep enough that you can't really develop on them. This is what it looks like driving along Upper Pike Creek Road, along the actual creek.
Here's what a creek a little south, on the Atlantic Coastal Plain, looks like. This is outside of Delaware City. More pictures of Delaware City later.
Our biggest city is Wilmington. The population is around 75,000. That's small, but the city limits are archaic. The suburbs add hundreds of thousands to the metro population. New Castle County, of which Wilmington is the seat, has a population of 550,000.
Here's what some of our suburbs look like. First is the town of Elsmere, which is a streetcar suburb from the 1900s and 1910s, and is kind of run-down now.
A little northwest of Elsmere is The Cedars, which is another streetcar suburb, but is now more like just a little neighborhood. Near The Cedars was an amusement park, Brandywine Park. It was typical for streetcar lines to end at an amusement park in the old days.
West of The Cedars is a big suburban area called Pike Creek. Pike Creek is centered around the creek called, obviously, Pike Creek. You saw it in those pictures just above. Pike Creek is basically north of Kirkwood Highway (DE Route 2), along Limestone Road and Polly Drummond Hill Road, and in between, until you reach Hockessin.
Outside of the heavily-developed area are some small towns. One is Delaware City, located at the eastern terminus of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. Delaware City was a boomtown in 1829 when the canal opened, but it was short-lived, as railroads were popping up in Delaware and the surrounding area within 5 years. Delaware City is one of the many quaint towns in Delaware, with even prettier towns like Odessa, Lewes, Bethel, and Milton, but this will have to whet your appetite for now.
Be sure to look for upcoming Arizona photothreads. Here's what I'll be posting:
Scottsdale
Phoenix (upcoming)
Flagstaff (upcoming)
Valle (upcoming)
Grand Canyon Village (upcoming)
I was able to feed my wanderlust and cross some places off of my bucket list. Here's some other things in the Southwest on my bucket list:
Bright Angel Trail, or somewhere inside the Grand Canyon
Monument Valley
Painted Desert
Petrified Forest
Meteor Crater
Supai
Williams
Jerome
Sedona
The most amazing ghost towns in the Southwest
Tucson
Some border town in Mexico
Tombstone
Bisbee
Santa Fe
Albuquerque
One of the pueblo towns
Some structure built before 1600
Petroglyphs
The Mighty 5 (Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Captiol Reef, and Zion National Parks)
Some final thoughts on Arizona, Nevada, and the Southwest:
~ What amazing scenery! So what if Phoenix "isn't urban enough" or anything like that. I'd live anywhere in the Phoenix metro if it meant having time to see all of the amazing places in the state.
~ There are a ton of National Monuments and National Parks in Arizona. It seems like there are too many to count. It appears that there are 21 places in the National Park System in Arizona. Has anyone been to most or all of them?
~ Who knew a vast expanse of dirt (i.e. the desert) would be so spectacular!
~ After looking at my pictures of Utah and Wyoming, the Northwest is a cool place in its own right. It would be cool to drive around the great expanses of Montana and Wyoming, or to see the mountains of Idaho, Utah, or Colorado.
~ Having posted my pictures of southern Utah, I'm now seeing advertisements on TV for the Mighty 5, the five national parks in southern Utah. Southern Utah and northern Arizona might be the most amazing natural scenery in the world.
~ Did I mention how great the scenery is?
Some final questions:
~ What are the most historic neighborhoods and urban areas in each Southwest city? Obviously, central areas will dominate, but are there any other areas? Old Town Scottsdale is one place that might go unnoticed, whereas Downtown Santa Fe is very well-known.
~ I'd like to visit a border town in Mexico some time. Even a border town would seem exotic. What is the safest one? Ciudad Juarez is probably the worst place to go. When I was in San Diego in 2009, I really wanted to see Tijuana, and Zona Centro seems like a historic neighborhood to explore, but it seems dangerous. Mexicali would be cool to see, to see a Mexican state capital and state capitol.
~ What are the best ghost towns in the West? Calico seems like one. How about Rhyolite? Jerome? What else?
That's the end of my pictures!