Most of you are aware of the fact that Phil has traveled as a consultant 50 weeks a year for about ten years now, and a huge blessing for the two of us is that, the majority of the time, I get to be with him in whatever city he happens to be on an IBM consulting engagement . Obviously, we both log a great amount of air time and accumulate United miles. (Phil has way over a million miles on United, and I have over 850,000.) :-)

We both love to travel, love flying, and never get over the awe of those big, cumbersome mechanical things getting off the ground and into the air, staying aloft, flying us over land and sea!

Presently, Phil's on an engagement in the San Francisco area, and we stay at the San Francisco Airport Marriott, which is located right on the bay and directly across from the landing strip. (As a matter of fact, I will be leaving for O'Hare soon to take a flight to SFO where I'll be with Phil for ten days.) While there, I watch planes take off and land all day long from our hotel room....a continual parade of 747's.

In addition to the airplanes that fly in and out, there are also lots of birds that spend time flying in the area between the hotel and the landing strip. You can almost hear them thinking, "When I grow up, I wanna be a 747!" :-)

This picture shows a covey of pelicans, and it appears as though they're trying really hard to get into formation while a 747 gets ready to turn for its take-off toward the Pacific Ocean.



When we're flying home from San Francisco, and once we've gotten through security, we almost always go and while away our waiting time at the Red Carpet Club. This is the view that allows us to watch the planes take off! I LOVE it!



I took this picture sitting in the same seat I was in when I took the picture of the 747 taking off.



It's fun to see our shadow.....I captured this when we were on a plane about to land in Orlando, Florida.