August addendum

Flying back from Virginia, my route was Norfolk --> Tampa --> Houston --> Dallas. Southwest is a great airline, but it's certainly not in a big hurry to get you anywhere :) The flight from Tampa to Houston was amazing in more ways than...well, 5. It was my first time to see the gorgeous Florida Gulf Coast (my family's home away from home when I was a kid) from the air and I've never been happier to have a window seat - that coast was a gorgeous sight to see. The contrast of turquoise water to white sand takes my breath away every time and it was even more spectacular from the air! Flying over water for a couple of hours was slightly unnerving though (possible water landing?? Wait - where is my life jacket again? Push what to release it?? Oh geez.). The scariness of the thought of a possible (albeit rare) water "evacuation" was completely put into perspective when I looked out my window and saw something unexpected and much scarier - distant ribbons of orange and brown floating in the water 25,000 ft below.

Our route that day took us directly over the Deepwater Horizon drilling site and the surrounding spill. It was unbelievable. I hadn't even considered the fact that we would fly anywhere near it - too concerned with the bad weather we were flying into - and then there we were right on top of the mess! I can't imagine how bad it must be at water level if it was that horrifying from the air...the damage is massive.

Surrounding the actual site were numerous booms and larger boats with bright orange decks which I assume were connected with the relief well drilling. I speculated about it all with the couple in front of me - we knew very little about what we were actually viewing, but were all in shock. Wonder if the pilot had any info he could have shared...then again, I suppose it's not his place to play "oil spill tour guide".

Long story short, I was so into staring out the window with my forehead literally (gross!) pressed against the window that I didn't even bother to take out my phone...or my camera...or the Flip! and document any of it.

Luckily, many YouTubers were quicker on the uptake than I and posted quite a few! This is the least annoying of the bunch (from May, but still looks about the same) -