We had an excellent flight from SFO to Heathrow on Virgin Atlantic. 747s are big!
So I’m watching the flight monitor map on the seatback LCD screen (645 mph ground speed, -70 F outside at 32000 feet) instead of a movie, ’cause I’m geeky like that. I get all excited because we’re flying directly over the Wallowa Valley in Oregon, which is where I think I’d like to move to in the next 10 years. Then I get even more excited as I see a suspiciously familiar-looking lake ahead. Sure enough, we flew DIRECTLY OVER Orofino, Idaho. Had I been on the left side of the plane, I could have pointed out the Boomershoot location (except that it was very cloudy).
Oh well. A few minutes later the clouds cleared and I could see Kalispell. That looks like a verykewl place, being right at the foot of a snowcapped wall of mountains (the same reason I like theWallowa Valley). Made a mental note to explore it later.
Of course, the free London paper (the Independent) provided on the plane had a blaring headline about bird flu having been found in the UK. The writeup (with graphics, charts, sidebars) was intelligent, complete and as informative as one could want. Puts US papers to shame. Had I not prepared by packing our N95 masks and Tamiflu, I might be scared!
Â