On Father’s Day weekend I had a special surprise for Dad (who drove up for the weekend). I had arranged for a private 30 minute flight over Seattle for he, Ty and I on Saturday. Actually, the flight was originally intended for Renee and her parents over the Christmas holiday, but the weather never cooperated for them to use the certificate so she told me I should use it with my Dad when he was in town.
The flight was a really great experience and both Dad and Ty loved it. We arrived about 10 minutes before our scheduled flight time and Ty was still in his tee-ball uniform after playing his last game of the season earlier in the day. Naturally, Ty was a little nervous about the whole idea ahead of time. The planes looked a lot smaller than the kind he was used to seeing (and flying) but he was put to ease as soon as he met the pilot and was led out to the small plane for our ride.
Even though we didn’t have crystal clear skies, the weather was still nice enough for us to see some gorgeous views over Seattle. We took off from Boeing Field and headed towards Lake Washington. After flying along the southwest corner of the Lake, we veered West towards Seattle. We passed over Safeco and CenturyLink Fields and then headed across Elliott Bay, which provided incredible views of both downtown Seattle to the North and West Seattle to the South. We circled around the north end of downtown, getting a great view of the Space Needle and South Lake Union. We then flew over Madison Park and tracked along the shores of Lake Washington heading South – until we got close to the I-90 bridge, when we turned East. The pilot showed us Medina and the various estates (including the famous Gates compound) before circling back over Lake Washington and flying over the University of Washington, where we could see Husky Stadium in full construction mode. Our path led us over Green Lake, Ballard and then the Puget Sound as we flew towards Bainbridge Island. We flew along Bainbridge for a ways before turning back towards Seattle and again over Elliott Bay, before our final approach and landing back at Boeing Field.
It was a great flight and experience – and definitely something I want to do again with Renee and Stone!
Here are some pictures from our 30 minute adventure (scroll from the bottom up if you want to see in chronological order:
