This week, on #SundayStills, it’s the monthly color challenge! For July, it’s Blue.

In April, when we booked the trip to the UK, we booked the kind of plane tickets that didn’t allow us to assign ourselves seats. We must wait until we arrive at the airport to get our seat assignment. Thankfully, the flights to and from the UK were pretty empty.

I’ve always been a rule stickler. So on the way there, I sat in my assigned seat the whole time, which was in the middle column of of the plane. However, on the return flight, despite being assigned the aisle seat, mom wanted the row to herself. So she moved to another row, leaving me alone with my own row, and having the window seat meant I could take pictures.

The first picture was taken as we just passed Ireland. The body of water to the left is the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve always flown across the Pacific, never the Atlantic. I wonder if the water is really this blue down below.

The plane I was on was a Boeing 787 and it was news to me to find the window can change color with a push of a button. This is just off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada. I didn’t want to wake sleeping passengers with the bright light outside, so I didn’t turn the window on all the way. I thought it looked pretty cool, though, with the swirling pattern. Consider it a Blue abstract.

We started to see land as we reached the mid-west region of the US as the plane dived southward from the great lakes. It was certainly interesting seeing the different terrains across the states. If I remember correctly, this is somewhere in the San Bernadino mountains in California. That’s a pretty good size reservoir, which really begs the question, do bodies of water really look this blue from up high?

This was right before the plane descended into LAX on that gloomy cloudy day at the end of May as we marked the end of our 11-day trip in the UK. Right before the descent, the captain of the plane informed us of the weather and when I heard the word, “cloudy”, I thought, oh no, have we brought the weather from the UK back with us?

A few moments later, after getting below the clouds, I started to see buildings, freeways, and houses and thought to myself, finally, back to the land of big.