Landmark

It's always so nice to see Mount Rainier on a trip home -- it means there's not far to go.  This is a view I don't get to see very often, usually because I'm in the wrong seat on the plane, but this time it worked out nicely. For the entire fight home from Los Angeles to Bellingham I was on the correct side of the plane and in a window seat. The weather was perfect for views like this and for once my camera wasn't in the overhead bin. 

At 14,410 feet, Mount Rainier is the highest mountain of the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest.  It's an active volcano and the most glaciated peak in the contiguous USA..  It's one of 452 volcanos that make up the Pacific Ring of Fire.  Kilauea in Hawaii, Mt. Fuji in Japan. Krakatoa in Indonesia, Galeras in Columbia, Sagay in Equador and Mount St. Helens in Washington State (dormant until 1980) are some of its ring-mates that bear watching.  Close to 90 percent of all earthquake activity in the world takes place in the Ring of Fire. 

 In another life I would have been a geologist, specifically a seismologist, but now it's just an armchair hobby.  At least I'm in a good part of the world for some great study opportunities.