Wow, pretty. I'm glad you did as well.

I have the same approach, thanks for giving it a name. I'm in denial from the moment I get to the airport until the moment I land. Take-off is the worst, followed by turbulance, then the landing. Great picture!

I see a sheepish bullfrog. You?

Aw, that's sweet. I had to fly last week and my seatmate's earbuds on the way home blasted techno for three solid hours. Sure, the BPM rose and fell here and there, but it was "oont-ch, oont-ch, oont-ch" all the way.

Hm. Looking out the window is what makes flying tolerable for me.

I'm going to use this subtle referrence to Andrew to ask Dan if he could comment on the whole issue of Gay partners, HIV and immigration woes, now that Andrew's own ordeal is over.

Oh yeah, that one cloud looks exactly like a nude James Franco.

Flying has a way of being both hyper mundane and utterly destroying the mundane

@3, I was gonna say a dying pitbull, but we'll go with yours--it also contains bull.

@4 (and @Dan), disposable foam earplugs are great to have along. Even without techno-emitting or chatty seatmates, I find the sustained roar to be the most exhausting part of a flight, and those earplugs knock 30-35 dB off whatever ails you. Even better are the bright fluorescent orange or green ones that visually signal your checked-out-ness.

You're coming back to Detroit? Saw you a month or so ago in Windsor.

Um....,Dan,.......that's a pretty pedestrian cloud-scape. Look out the window more often. It's what makes flying fun.

Thanks, rob! I did that, but I've always despised the feeling of earplugs down so deep in my ear. Boo hoo. And it's my own fault for being such an infrequent flyer I forgot my noise-cancelling over-ear headphones.

So half the time I tried the earplugs the flight attendant brought me after we traded eyerolls over my seatmate. But I couldn't leave them jammed in there too long at a time, so it was back and forth between a rock and a hard place the whole time.

Still, only three hours - no great hardship really.

Lovely view ruined by ugly-ass Ke$ha ad to its right, but that's the interwebs for ya. Have fun in Detroit. Be sure to check out the giant fist statue in the deserted downtown waterfront. And keep track of how many time cab drivers try to get you to go to a casino.

@Fnarf: I totally see it.

When I was a kid on airplane rides with my parents and sister(s), I used to look at the clouds and dream about jumping around in them. Still do sometimes, on the rare occasions I fly .

I prefer aisle to window seats, but also made an exception on a recent nighttime flight (flying over the Midwest) and picked a window seat. At one point, I looked out the window when I noticed a flash of light - turns out it was lightning. 3 minutes later, I was looking out into the darkness at a raging lightning storm. It was equal parts beautiful and terrifying.

@14 Ditto

@11: Yeah! God, Dan is such a loser for thinking those clouds are cool! Everyone knows the cool clouds hang out by Austin! Sheesh.

Linus: "That group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen... I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side..."

Lucy: "Uh huh... that's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?"

Charlie Brown: "Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and horsie but I changed my mind."

@15 - me too. Still do, sometimes - especially after a beer and an Ambien.....

Nice call on the frog.

yep, that's what it looks like outside a plane's window.

Swell photo, thanks for sharing it. I always try to book window seats because the view is almost always gorgeous.

I see a drunken Winnie the Pooh.

@4 Your techno-earbud story reminded me of my last flight, where the woman across from me--new to iPods, apparently--had her earbuds in, but was also broadcasting on speaker. The song? Amazing Grace played on the bagpipes. The guy directly behind her and I kept looking at each other and cracking up. Finally the stewardess came along and said, "That's a really great song, but it's a little loud..."

Air travel is a rare event for me, but I have no fear of it. I love to watch the city below recede into a toy town as the plane takes off, see the clods from above, the misty, far-off horizon and the parade of toy towns and toy landscapes that unfolds below. I do, however, find myself wishing I knew the names of the towns and mountains below, but that's the only thing that, for me, puts any blemish on the childlike wonder of experiencing the magical kingdom of high above.

That view always reminds me of the absolute best song ever written about airplane flight, The Big Country, by Talking Heads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErdvJrv8…

I see the shapes,
I remember from maps.
I see the shoreline.
I see the whitecaps.
A baseball diamond, nice weather down there.
I see the school and the houses where the kids are.
Places to park by the factories and buildings.
Restaurants and bar for later in the evening.
Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas.
And I have learned how these things work together.
I see the parkway that passes through them all.
And I have learned how to look at these things and I say,

I wouldn't live there if you paid me.
I couldn't live like that, no siree!
I couldn't do the things the way those people do.
I couldn't live there if you paid me to.

I guess it's healthy, I guess the air is clean.
I guess those people have fun with their neighbors and friends.
Look at that kitchen and all of that food.
Look at them eat it, I guess it tastes real good.

They grow it in the farmlands
And they take it to the stores
They put it in the car trunk
And they bring it back home and I say

I wouldn't live there if you paid me.
I couldn't live like that, no siree!
I couldn't do the things the way those people do.
I wouldn't live there if you paid me to.

I'm tired of looking out the windows of the airplane
I'm tired of travelling, I want to be somewhere.
It's not even worth talking
About those people down there.

Fliers like Dan annoy the crap out of me. It's SUCH an amazing and ridiculous vantage point to have on the world and to not take advantage of every moment of it seems criminal, at least in my humble estimation (and I obviously don't fly very much, hardly ever even.) And so I've always felt that if you're not gonna take advantage of that wonderful opportunity, at least don't take up the window seat for those of us that will.

So anyway -- a year or two ago I was headed back east for my brother's wedding and was stuck in the middle seat next to a woman who was clearly getting annoyed by my staring over her lap to see the sights. Once she finally made a display of closing the blinds & ending my fun I tried real hard to be even more annoying and just stare real obnoxiously right at her face instead (I only lasted less than a minute or so, eventually laughing to myself about it, but had fun trying to keep it up as long as I could!)

Next time you're flying over the grand canyon, peek out for that one too. It's a real treat!

Just think how FAR it would be to FALL all the way down from there! It would take FOREVER!

Looks to me like a chubby tiger leaning on his right elbow. I love flying and always wish they made the sides and roof of airplanes see-through with a strong interior fan. Probably a bird in my last life.

@32 lulz -- i'd love that too, but that'd be far better at reducing security risks than any TSA crappery since I think that would scare out 75% of flyers...!!

Just put the chickens in cargo 8-)

Aw! I love it when you do random happy posts. It's so uplifting and bloggy.

Oh, and I agree with others above: I see a frog too! To me, it looks like the frog-like creature that catches something with its tongue and burps close to the beginning of Return of the Jedi. Anybody else remember that?!