Arriving at Phoenix during the Monsoon

As you might have gathered from my previous post, I'm home again. Amazingly this is the second time I've returned on the day planned, on the flight booked at the commencement of the trip. If this keeps up I might enjoy travelling more!

It was the usual litany; the long drive from Baguio to Manila, fly Manila to Singapore, then a long long flight to LA, wait around for quite a while and thence to Phoenix. It was somewhat better this time because I now qualify as a Star Alliance Gold Member, which gives me access to the Singapore Airlines Raffles Class lounge! Well swipe me, as Tony Hancock used to say. But you can't say no to free snacks and wine. Well I can't!

The flight from Singapore to LA went quite far north this time; far enough north that you could see, on the horizon, a narrow line of eternal sunshine marking those parts of the planet where, this time of the year, the sun doesn't set.

Flying to Phoenix was somewhat different. As we made the turn from the Pacific back toward Phoenix I was fascinated to see the almost full moon wheeling across the sky! I'm a trifle confused about the route we took because at one point I could see the moonlight reflected on a lake far below. This wasn't the Pacific Ocean; we'd already turned around and crossed southern Greater Los Angeles and were over one of the dark areas between LA and Phoenix. Yet there, far below, was a vast flat sheet of water. My wife thinks it was the Salton Sea.

Then, maybe 120 miles out of Phoenix, we started the descent, through a vast plain of clouds lit up by the moon. Quite an unearthly sight, punctuated by flashes of lightning. A few bumps as we passed through cloud banks, smooth when once again we were in clear air. And then came the announcement; a monsoonal storm was passing over Phoenix Sky HarboUr and we were in a holding pattern. Quite the bumpy holding pattern, zig zags of lightning seeming close enough that I could touch them if I could only put my hand through the window.

Then we were cleared to proceed. More bumps as we came in from the southeast. The seatbelt lights were on and the cabin crew were securely strapped in; a sure sign that bad weather is expected. We flew past the South Mountains and descended low over the city; my guess is no more than a couple of kilometres up. Turn left and then right and descend through more bumps. I had no idea where we were; those flashing red lights on the South Mountains looked much to far away for us to be approaching a landing and I was trying to decide if we were going to pass by the airport and do a 180 and then, suddenly, there was the landing strip and we were down, wing wobbling close to the ground and then swinging up again. A bit of a bang and we were down!

As we turned into the taxi lane I could see a second plane landing and another on its approach. Suddenly rain cascaded across the taxi lane, driven by squalls that rocked the plane from side to side. The plane still on approach aborted, swooping away to the north.

Leaving the plane, on the air bridge, I felt that familiar blast of heat. Welcome to Phoenix!