Window Seat

Icebergs in the North Atlantic. When I first caught sight of a couple in the ocean I thought they were ships. Nope. Ice!

It's been over a week since I returned from Italy via Iceland. When I got back there were a lot of things to take care of, but now I'm taking a few minutes today to reflect and wind up this chapter of the blog. 

The trip home was a visual delight. I took off about 5 pm Iceland time and flying west, chased the sunlight until landing in Minnesota at around 7 pm Central time. 

I always try to book a window seat. For the cartographer in me the view from the plane is a glimpse of the world map in real time. This trip didn't disappoint. 

The east coast of Greenland. What a delight to be able to see where glaciers met the ocean. At first I thought there was a settlement on the coast, but no, all those white things were icebergs.

Once we'd cleared some clouds west of Iceland, I started to see icebergs in the North Atlantic below. They increased in frequency as we approached the east coast of Greenland, where glaciers met the water.

A glacier (upper left) flows into ice-choked waters at the edge of the island.

Flying directly over a flowing glacier, my last glimpse of the surface before clouds obstructed the view.

Clouds obstructed the view of the surface until just before we got to the northern tip of Labrador. There I got a great look at the glacier-scarred bedrock forming the northern tip of the landmass before clouds thickened once again. I knew we were flying over Hudson Bay but wasn't able to see it.

The northernmost tip of Labrador, scarred by glaciation and covered with snow.

I'd worried about missing Minnesota's beautiful fall colors, but I got a bird's eye view of them on our approach to MSP

However, just after we crossed over Lake Superior the clouds parted and I was able to look down on pastoral parts of western Wisconsin. Our final approach to the Twin Cities was dramatic, as fall colors were at their peak and there were rain showers in the area.

Icing on the cake: A minute before landing I got this view of a storm in progress, complete with a bit of rainbow.









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