The Flight Back

15 May 1999, Friday

Ranjani gave us a ride to the airport at dawn. Initially the sky was
clear, so we could see the vista. We saw the salt deposits near Salt Lake
City. Also saw the mountain ranges of Grand Teton and Yellowstone NPs. The
mountains had snow-covered peaks here, too.

Soon the sky clouded up and nothing was visible. Sometime later I saw a
plane going Southeast, at a lower altitude. Its Eastward velocity was not
very different from our plane, so it appeared to be moving sideways! 
Although I had studied relative velocity in school, this was the first
time I experienced it with a blank background. 

We had a stopover at Minneapolis, Minnesota. As the plane descended below
the clouds, we could see a whole lot of lakes all over the place! The next
leg of the flight took us over Milwaukee, and we had a few glimpses of the
city. We also saw Lake Michigan and later Lake Erie as we neared
Cleveland. 

In the evening I accompanied Srinivas to a graduation party thrown by the
alumni association of Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead school
of management. Srinivas received his "Heart and Soul" prize that day for
his contributions to the MBA program there.