Hello, Mr President

A year ago September I regaled you in my lack of success in seeing Barack Obama arrive in the Twin Cities on Air Force One.  I live under the westerly incoming flight path for the Minneapolis-St Paul airport.  That day, however, the winds were such that flights were coming in from one of the other compass directions. It happens.

Today, though, airplanes are being landed from the west and Air Force One was no exception.  I looked up Barack's schedule on-line, then sat out on my deck about 20 minutes prior to the wheels-down time.  I only had to wait a couple of minutes to know it was on its way.

It's kind of eerie just before Air Force One arrives.  The air traffic controllers clear the sky for the President.  You go from hearing an airplane about once a minute to hearing none for about eight minutes.  Today is cloudy, so the first sign of the plane was engine noise.  It came in much lower than your average jet.  And suddenly, it was right over me.

  Appearing from the clouds

The plane is so big that it seems to move really slow.  Almost as quickly as it appeared, it was surrounded by clouds again.  Then it moved directly over my house.  I could see it but the angle messed up my camera's auto focus.

After a few seconds, it moved past the roof line and I was able to snap pictures again.

Close enough to touch, almost

A better angle, but now farther away

And then it disappeared into the clouds again.

So I got my pictures of Air Force One.  Next, maybe I'll get invited for a ride.   (You realize I'm not actually expecting that, don't you?)