Started early this morning at 4:00 a.m. to catch a flight to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida at 7:00 a.m.

The skies across America were clear most of the way, with patchy clouds here and there and some snow-topped mountain peaks in northern New Mexico before the landscape flattened out over Kansas.

A quick stopover in St. Louis, and then we were back in the air for a great view of the Mississippi River on our turn south.

About 15 minutes later, I could see where the Ohio River joined the Mississippi, and after a few more minutes, we were approaching the 184-mile-long Berkley Lake in Kentucky that stretches into Tennessee.

Our flight continued over Alabama, clipping the southwest corner of Georgia before crossing the panhandle of Florida, then tracing the west coast. This here is the Aucilla River emptying into Apalachee Bay, Florida.

We were traveling at over 550 miles per hour and were still about an hour from landing and starting our nearly weeklong trip to the Florida Keys. Fetching our rental car took longer than planned, and the rush hour traffic around Miami nixed our plans of watching the sunset in the Everglades National Park. A Comfort Inn in Florida City was where we rested our heads after dinner at an Italian place called the Capri Restaurant. So far, an uneventful beginning to what will hopefully be a thrilling vacation.