Gerald R Ford International Airport, Grand Rapids

Today I headed back home after my long weekend in Michigan. My cousin dropped me off a little early before an appointment so I had time to enjoy a coffee and check out the President Gerald R Ford Tribute room. Ford was from Grand Rapids and served as the 38th US President after Nixon resigned. The displays here are a small tribute to him at the airport named after him. There is a larger Gerald R Ford museum in the city. I must try to get there on a future visit. The model is of an aircraft carrier named after him.

I also had time for a bit of plane spotting. Back in October I was in Denver, home of Frontier Airlines, and did a blip of a whole row of their beautiful planes. See that blip here. Each one has a different animal on the tail. So I was happy to see this one here today in Grand Rapids.

The little plane on the right is my plane. Thankfully I won’t be going all the way over the Atlantic in this tiny one, but it did take me over Lake Michigan to Chicago. The flight is scheduled for an hour, but much of that is taxi time. The time in the air across the lake is about 25 minutes. I was very happy to get on as it was booked almost full. If I hadn’t got on, it would have been another 3 hours for the next one, and would have meant a 3 hour sit in Chicago as well. Thankfully, this one left on time, with ME on it, and I connected to the first London flight an hour after landing in Chicago. No room for me in Business class this time, but I was very happy with a whole row to myself in Economy. The adventures of standby!