Travelog: Arial Shots

When I have the great fortune to travel from place to place, I take my camera with me and document the local scenes and wildlife. My photojournalism usually starts right out the gate with take off. It's fascinating to me to see a city, my own or a new one, from a few hundred feet above. The structures and natural landscapes are still discernible and the vantage is always breathtaking. It really puts an area in perspective. Usually, I notice how most cities are more green than we can really appreciate. Usually there are patches of woods or prairies or water systems connected together by pencil then traces separately by roads. Mainly because airports are pesky places to live, these areas are usually very nice urban wildlife refuges.

My most recent trip - a visit to San Francisco for a Coalition for the Public Understanding of Science Focus group, I flew into Minneapolis and noticed the rising water levels that have been making the news.

Minneapolis, Minnesota near the airport. Saturday, March 20, 2010

approaching the airport, airplane descending. The trees are submerged.

The high water levels are only a few feet from business buildings.

I'll see more of this high water, down river when I return to St. Louis and as the spring thaw sends more water into the river.

Check out Birdchick's pictures and commentary of the Mississippi River flooding, around the same time in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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I had a two-stop layover to San Francisco, so my next stop was Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a beautiful city and a chance to see a very different ecosystem as well as a very different geological formation - mountains, the Rocky Mountains to be exact.

I love how this very large urban area (the largest, most populous city in Utah) sits comfortably next to these majestic snow capped mountains. Winter outdoor sports are all the rage here and I bet the wildlife watching (plants and animals) is interesting as well.

I'm imagining how different the urban ecology is here compared to where I live now.

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Hope you enjoyed my travelog from my latest excursion. I have several more trips planned this summer - science presentations and science conferences. You know I'll share with you.

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Thank you very much,
DNLee