Alaska -- Travel Day

What a amazing world! Yesterday we flew from New York to Alaska, via Dallas, Texas. I had a book I was reading on my kindle, but I also enjoyed watching the checkerboard of midwestern and western farms and ranches passing below. In some areas the fields are all planted in circles-- clearly due to irrigation systems. Then in some areas they were all in squares and rectangles. No need for irrigation there? or a different kind of irrigation system? I'll have to look that up...

Watercolor of the view out my window

Then we started to cross over the Rocky Mountains, and I read less of my book and did more watching out the window. Why were the mountains more covered with snow on on side? Why were some areas dry and brown while others were richly green? I want to read more about the intersection of geography, weather, and climate.

And then, finally, we were over Northwest Canada and ALASKA. I have never seen such mountains -- jagged, huge, increasingly covered with snow as we traveled northward, brilliant in the sun, seemingly endless in all directions. I saw my first glaciers and marveled at the flow lines so clearly visible from above.  We passed over avalanches (not happening, but the obvious patterns left by them), and myriad mountains just barely peeking out above snow-filled valleys, then broad valleys of deep green with rivers winding through them, followed by more snow-covered mountains.

Alaskan mountains from airplane window

Avalanche at left center

In a couple of the valleys we passed over small towns, isolated by distance, geography, and weather. What must it be like to live so far from the society as I know it? There was no sign of people throughout most of the vastness of the mountains--- just rugged landscape, mountains in every direction, and more snow than I have ever seen. My kindle forgotten, I spent the last hours of our flight engrossed in the book of God's creation, brought to tears and filled with awe by such wonder and beauty as I have never seen before.