Flying Back (Part Two)

My flight from Mexico City to Washington Dulles Airport landed twenty minutes early.  I have never particularly cared for Dulles Airport, and I usually try to avoid it.  However, I was pleasantly surprised that there was no wait whatsoever to go through immigration, even though flights from Zurich and Frankfurt had recently arrived.  That might be because international passengers whose final destination is Washington are put on buses to go to a different immigration area.  However, once I passed through immigration and customs, going through security seemed very disorganized with a long, slow-moving line.  I will say that we were not required to take off our shoes.  They also had new x-ray machines that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, and we were not required to remove our laptops from our carry-ons.

I still had over an hour and a half before my flight to Cleveland was to begin boarding.  I headed to the concourse where my plane was to depart, and fortunately there was a United Club lounge.  I popped in and had a free lunch there.

I was at the gate for my flight about fifteen minutes before scheduled boarding.  The plane had just arrived, and a seemingly endless stream of passengers from the previous flight were exiting.  Then they had to clean the plane.  I really didn't think that we would be able to board and take off on time, but somehow we did.  We were up in the air and making the quick, one-hour trip to Cleveland.

It was twilight by the time we began our descent, but I could still clearly see the shoreline of Lake Erie.

There was no snow in Ohio.  The high temperature that day had reached an unseasonably mild 60 F.  However, I looked down and saw an area of snow.

It had to be one of the ski resorts to the south of Cleveland.  They were obviously using their artificial snow-making machines.

In moments we were over the eastern suburbs of Cleveland.

Then the break wall of Cleveland harbor and Burke Lakefront Airport were visible.

The small airport serves mainly private aircraft, some cargo planes and charter flights.

Then we were directly over downtown Cleveland.  Although the football season is over, the lights were on in the Cleveland Browns Stadium.

We continued in a southwestward direction.  The suburb of Lakewood to the west of Cleveland was visible, and we were making our final approach to Cleveland Hopkins Airport, which is about 12 miles from downtown Cleveland, and just 4.5 miles from my house.

My friend Frank was there at the airport to meet me and drive me home.  Now I am in Ohio for just over month until I return again to Mexico.