The best view of Seattle

I caught a 7:45 AM flight from IAD (Dulles airport outside of Washington, DC) to Seattle this morning. With the time zones, we landed in Seattle at about 10:30.

These past few days, Seattle has been having one of those rare sun bursts for February. When the clouds go away, so does the heat, so it's a nice, chilly 40 degrees. Actually, that was the temperature in my apartment, but that's what sweaters and blankets are for.

With the clouds gone, and the sun shining through, the view of the city and mountains is brilliant. The colors and textures of the mountains and landscape pop on days like this.

One of the best things about flying into Seattle, is that about 2/3 of the time the planes land from the north and fly in over the city. They often come in either from over the sound to the west, or over the lakes to the east. Then they turn south and fly straight down I-5 and over downtown. The planes are low enough at the point that passengers have amazing views of downtown. You can pick out Greenlake, the Ballard Bridge, the Aurora Bridge, Paul Allen's Experience Music project, and the Convention Center.

Today, I could even pick out my aprtment building from the plane. No one was in the hot tub.

From the plane it looks like you could roll down the window and touch the Space Needle, the Smith Tower, and Columbia tower. During a game, you can see the crowds in Qwest Field or Safeco field, before continuing over the port. As you continue to descend, you may fly over a King5 helicopter landing at Boeing field, it's logo colors, brilliant against the morning light.

The final couple thousand feed get kind of dull. And then you're at the airport wondering what people hope to gain by unhooking their seatbelt and getting up 10 seconds before the light goes off.

Flying back into Seattle is the most consistently amazing approach I've seen from an aircraft.