Planespotting Simplified

We enjoy looking at planes.

What probably causes that sense of pleasure is the fact that opportunities for planespotting inevitably occur in the course of travel and on a plane, in an airport, in an airport hotel, or perhaps even on a viewing terrace like the one at the LAX H Hotel. 

It's easy to pick out an Airbus 380 or a Boeing 747. After that, we have difficulties. Now we have some help.

We've subscribed to One Mile at a Time for many years. Ben just posted an informative post pointing out easy ways to identify a particular plane.

We enjoyed that post so much that we looked for another one, finding on Simple Flying a useful post that covers a lot of the same ground, but includes information about the Boeing 757 and the Embraer Regional Jets. 

Now we're ready for some serious planespotting. 

 

A Few Notes on a Quick Trip

With the exception of an early-morning check in at the crowded American Airlines counters in Phoenix, the airports we traversed – BLI, SEA, ABQ – weren’t quite as busy as we’d found them on trips earlier in the year. Maybe we were just lucky.

Airline lounges can be nice spots to relax, as we discovered at SEA (Alaska Lounge) and PHX (AA Admirals Club). Coffee is a useful beverage when one has arrived late, taken a shuttle to a hotel with a Ma and Pa Kettle load of luggage, and returned to the airport about six hours later to check luggage in again.

Sometimes checking luggage works out. Yes, we had to check a cooler and an insulated carton, both containing dry ice, in Bellingham, in Phoenix, and again in Albuquerque on our return. It was relatively little fuss, and the baggage handlers even managed a quick transfer from our incoming E175 at SEA to our ongoing E175 while holding the plane for the four of us to make the last flight of the day up to Bellingham.

Speaking of the E175, we really enjoy flying on the Embraer175, a 76-peassenger twin engine jet made in Brazil. It’s quiet and comfortable. With 12 first class seats,  upgrades are available more than you might think. In fact, by signing up daughter Karen as Kathy’s companion, and son-in-law Chuck as Brian’s, we scored upgrades for all four of us on the SEA-PHX flight, and were otherwise seated in 2 x 2 Premium Class seating, which isn’t bad at all. 

We still enjoy flying. All five of our flights were pleasant to some degree, enough so that we booked an Alaska Hawaii sale flight to the Big Island the morning after we'd arrived home after Midnight.

 

 

Back in the Air

It’s almost a challenge to tear ourselves away from warm days and glorious sunsets like this one.

Still, we’re on our way to the Southwest for a few days with daughter Karen and son-in-law Chuck.

Our outbound itinerary is mildly awkward. We fly Bellingham to Seattle to Phoenix, and overnight there for a few hours before flying to Albuquerque tomorrow morning.

We pick up a rental car, stock up at Costco, and drive about fours north to a remote ranch (Kathy’s family owns a share) near Pagosa Springs CO to spend a few days.

It’s not exactly as ambitious as our late May visit to Australia, but we’re looking forward to it.

It’s a beautiful night to fly over the San Juan Islands.

A good start to our little trip