Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Happy Birthday, Becky!

By Brendan Loy

Another great lightning show

By Brendan Loy

We're safe and sound in Phoenix, having flown in from Tennessee yesterday with no Friday the 13th complications. :) Loyette was amazing; she didn't cry or fuss at all during takeoff, and she literally slept through landing. At one point in the middle of the flight, she woke up and cried for about 10 seconds -- but that was it. Otherwise she was completely calm for the entire flight. She's an amazing baby. :)

Also amazing: the view out the left-hand side of the plane, where we were sitting, looking south directly into a thunderstorm over west Texas. Neither the photos nor the video that I took remotely do the sight justice, but just for a taste, here's a photo:

It was really, really cool to see -- the second time in a week that I've been treated to a great lightning show. This time, of course, we were watching it from 36,000 feet, so it was a very different sort of view. There was lightning every couple of seconds, flashing across the sky and lighting up the clouds in all sorts of awesome patterns. Absolutely incredible.

Here's an archived radar image of what I believe is the line of storms that we were looking into: