I'm here

After a long but most enjoyable 10 1/2 hour flight with Virgin Atlantic I have arrived at my holiday destination. My daughter -in-law accompanied me as she was returning home following a holiday during which time she and my son had been to a wedding up north in Inverness. My son had already had to return earlier for work commitments.

The journey was amazing as for the most part we were flying ahead of the night. We left Manchester and flew up the west coast of the UK, then across and over Greenland. By this time the sun was sinking on the other side of the plane but from my side the moon became clearer and clearer and Jupiter more and more twinkly. It was then that I had the most incredible views of the enormous tract of frozen landscape below me. Large rugged mountains of ice and deep valleys where it looked as if nothing would ever stir again. Unfortunately it was maybe one hour too late to be able to take good photos but I will keep the images and hope that when I return, photoshop might be able to decipher something meaningful. At least I have it in my memory bank. Totally awesome and indeed, humbling to experience.

From Greenland the route continued over the frozen waters and islands towards Canada, passing places with wonderful names - Great Bear Lake, Yellowknife and Great Slave Lake - and then on across the Canadian prairies which are probably quite dull when on land but quite intriguing from the air. Then over the Athabascan icefields where huge glaciers could be seen and on towards Calgary with the Rocky Mountains looming large and awesome veering off towards the west. The frozen landscape was softer now as the route continued down towards the Great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City with mountain ranges of Oquirrh and Wasatch which seemed to have glaciers in some valleys. From there the landscape became brown and desert like with large mountainous areas rising like large brown eruptions and so it continued until the flight captain announced we were beginning our descent to Las Vegas.

My son met us and we had a quick tour of The Strip - more of which later - before dusk fell and we headed back to their home which is situated to the very north of Vegas where desert meets civilisation.