Less than an hour later we were sailing above the clear blue of a large inland sea: Lake Michigan. From there we angled down through southern Wisconsin and Minnesota, crossing the Mississippi not far from Prairie du Chien.
Clouds moved in as we traversed Iowa and Nebraska but they cleared as we approached Denver, long enough to see the irrigation circles in eastern Colorado. It was a geography lesson in a nutshell, a lovely morning in the heavens on the great circle route.