Flight Log of Alaska Airlines Flight 6 Los Angeles to Washington DC

This is a brief log of the final day of April 2021 Southern California trip as I flew back from Los Angeles.

Confluence of San Juan River and Colorado River

Despite not seeing any significant wildflower bloom, I spent three great days exploring nature around Joshua Tree National Park, and today, I would be flying back home. My flight would leave Los Angeles Airport at 1pm, which gave me plenty of time to say goodbye to my wonderful Airbnb host in Desert Hot Springs, then make the 125-mile drive to Los Angeles.

I left at about 8am in the morning, the traffic into Los Angeles was dense, but mostly at highway speed. Heading west, the clouds grew thicker and there was even occasional drizzle. The fields of rape in full bloom at Chino Hills was a sight to behold. I would wish to have run into either the clouds or the bloom in Joshua Tree National Park.

After returning the rental car at South Inglewood, it’s my lucky moment to catch a departing city bus to the airport. That ended up giving me a few moments to chill out before boarding my flight to Washington DC.

Alaska Airlines A321neo (N921VA)
My plane to Washington DC.

Alaska Airlines 6
Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Washington Reagan National, VA (DCA)
Airbus A321neo (N921VA)
Seat 32A
Scheduled Departure – 1:10pm
Actual Departure     – 1:12pm
Scheduled Arrival   – 8:58pm
Actual Arrival       – 8:35pm
4 hours and 23 minutes

The boarding part went without a hitch. We had a short wait before getting onto runway 25R. It seemed that during pandemic months, Los Angeles Airport was operating with only one southern runway, with runway 25L closed.
Here’s GPS tracking:

Takeoff
It’s a cloudy day with occasional drizzle. Not long after lifting off we were in clouds.

 
California Desert

I managed to stay awake until we entered Nevada. We overflew Las Vegas, with some interesting sights nearby.

Charleston Peak

Red Rock Canyon
Striking colors among neighboring mountains.

North Las Vegas
A city surrounded by desert.

Once past Las Vegas, I was feeling sort of tired after this morning’s driving, so I took a few naps now and then. This continued all the way till we were in Southern Colorado. It’s also getting more and more cloudy so there wasn’t much to show.

Colorado River
Bullfrog Bay

After that, it’s the typical midwestern scene, a few small towns sprinkled among endless farmlands.

 
Lincoln and Champaign, Illinois

 
Crawfordsville and Leabnon, Indiana

 
Sunset Glow
Only 4 minutes separated these two photos.

Overflying Dulles Airport

Northern Virginia

We had a longer than expected downwind segment before landing, but apart from that everything went smoothly. And not long after landing, I was on the metro train back home.

Priority Luggage Tag

As of writing I had flown quite a few segments of Alaska Airlines with entry-level MVP status. This was the first and only time I got the priority tag.

Flight Log of Alaska Airlines Flight 6 Los Angeles to Washington DC by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.