De-Icing

After two beautiful sunny days in Denver there was more snow forecasted for today. I was due to leave Denver mid morning to head home to London today, booked via Chicago. I decided last night that if I woke up early I would take an earlier flight to try and avoid any later snow delays. I did wake up early - at 3am! And so I was out of the hotel at 415 and on a flight at just before 7am. There’s an advantage of jetlag!

It was cold and snowy enough that the planes were being de-iced. This used to take place at the gate before pushback, but now they do it at a remote point on the way to the takeoff runway. A whole line of de-icing trucks were ready and waiting for departing aircraft, and because we were an early flight they were able to use 4 trucks at once - one on each side of the plane. So it all happened very quickly and we were safely on our way. It’s the first time I’ve seen such a fast and efficient de-icing procedure!

I’m not sure how much snow Denver actually got, but I was glad I got out early. It’s usually a wise move. However, it meant that I had 5 hours to sit around in Chicago. Once we were finally on our way I had more beautiful scenes outside the window. First, we had a great view of the city of Chicago as we were on ascent. And soon after we crossed Lake Michigan, with some interesting swirls of ice below. See both Extra photos. Today was a great day for sightseeing!