My Three-and-a-half Hour Flight from Jacksonville to Atlanta!

I'm back in Denver this morning after my two week stint in North Florida to be with my Mom during her surgery and subsequent recovery.  I'm glad I made it back there, it was nice to help her through that time.

On the subject of "Time"... I scheduled my return trip to Denver as late as possible for yesterday to allow as much time with my Mom, Dad and Sister, while still returning me to Denver with a day to recoup, relax and readjust to the time etc...

My flight on Delta (by the way, I highly recommend them) had me departing from JAX at 6:15pm flying into Atlanta for an almost 3 hour layover prior to my connection to Denver... Let's just say I'm thankful for that 3 hour buffer!

Pushed from the gate on-time in Jacksonville, and as we were taxiing to runway 25, our flight crew was informed by the tower that Atlanta had imposed a sequencing delay and as such we were assigned an unused section of the airport and told to "apply the parking break... and recommend you shut down those gas vacuums too."  Which we did... for an hour.

Finally our clearance came, and slip the surly bonds we did!  Anticipated flight time... 40 minutes to the ATL.   ... NOT SO FAST THERE SUNSHINE!

Half way there, Capt. "Supercool Radio Voice" informs us that he has good news and bad news... Bad news... "there is a significant thunderstorm over Atlanta and we will be baking doughnuts in the sky to the south of that mess"  The good news is... "we've got the gas to play with." 

"Oh, by the way ladies and gentlemen... we will have company... other aircraft will be circling with us down here so do not be surprised if you see another bird nearby."

Even having received that brief, I was still surprised by what followed.

We approached the storm and began our right turn holding pattern.  Just as we concluded our first lap I glance up over my left shoulder and see this! 

YOWSA! 

Thanks for the heads-up there skipper!  Other wise I might have soiled myself!

What started off as a bit of a surprise, really became a pretty cool experience as we burned lazy ovals in the skies over Perry and Macon Georgia. 

Me telling it from here probably doesn't do it justice, so I'll just share with you a few of the images I managed to capture over the course of our 2 hour holding pattern.

Here's the reason for the hold in the first place...

Fair enough!  I'm pretty sure we do not want to be trying to land through that... Let's pretend we're aerial NASCAR (with right turns!).

When what to my wondering eyes should appear...?  But a 757, drawing increasingly near!

We made numerous laps with our newly found wingman.  It was an interesting experience to fly a loose duce at 27,000 ft. with a 757, turning together etc...

Then it was time to press in... we were the path finder.  Our wingman evidently declared "Bingo" (meaning "I'm low on fuel now, and have to go somewhere else to land safely!") and we became number 1 in the pattern.  Congratulations, you all get to see how bumpy the ride is! 

We turn in...

Hey! This is looking a little ominous... (sorry for the photo quality, it was getting dark and bouncy...)

But alas there is always a light at the end of the storm!  And what a beautiful sunset it was!

The rest of the approach and landing was un-eventful.  My connection was also delayed thanks to the storm but eventually I made it to Denver back into the loving arms of my wife, and the loving, albeit sharp claws of my cats.  It's good to be home.