Alaska Airlines | Fotoeins Fotografie

Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, Alaska Airlines, AS2314, SEA-YVR, SEA, YVR, Lake Washington, Medina, Bellevue, highway 520, Seattle, Washington, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Above the world’s longest floating bridge (Seattle)

16 March 2017.

After a few weeks in Germany, I’m returning to Vancouver via Seattle. The short aerial hop with Alaska Airlines has just departed Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and the plane has made the turn towards the Canadian-American border. Pressing first my nose and then my camera against the plexiglass, familiar sights greet me on the northbound flight.

Opened to traffic in 2016, the new Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (or “520 bridge”) over Lake Washington is a floating pontoon bridge for Washington State highway 520 connecting Seattle Montlake in the west with Medina and Bellevue to the east. At a length of 2350 metres (7710 feet), the span is the longest floating bridge in the world. In the aerial view shown above, the scene faces east along the bridge to Medina and towards the illuminated office towers in downtown Bellevue (upper right). At bottom left and right are the Seattle neighbourhoods of Laurelhurst and Madison Park, respectively.

I made the photo on 16 March 2017 with a Canon 6D, 24-105 L zoom, and the following settings: 1/320-sec, f/16, ISO1000, and 55mm focal length. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie on fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-9Ux.

86 percent “round the world” for $315

OK, I admit it – the title to this post is a little misleading, because I’m referring to the distance I’ve traveled during the first five months of 2012, the distance equivalent to 86-percent of the way around the world.

But still, there’s a big chunk of miles around the planet for a small chunk of change.

But first, here’s a little background …

Over the last ten-plus years, I’ve flown a total of over one million miles with American Airlines and their Oneworld alliance partners. This means a few key things:

some “we love you” elite-status, which means faster check-in process, no “first checked-bag” fees, early boarding, and some use of the airport lounges,
faster accumulation of miles “earned” by flying,
and I’ve a chance to use these miles to see friends around North America in a short period of time without breaking the budget.

Using miles to fly within North America

I began the North America portion of my around-the-world (RTW) trip the first week of 2012. With over 300,000 frequent-flyer miles in store, I’ve traveled throughout the continent by redeeming miles (plus taxes) for the following flights.

North America flights, AAdvantage, frequent flyer miles

Date	Destination	Route	Miles Traveled & Used	Taxes & Fees ($ USD)
Jan 4	Vancouver, BC	SFO-LAX-YVR 1-way	1418 \| 25k	5.00
Jan 19	Honolulu, HI	YVR-SEA-HNL return	5608 \| 35k	66.00
Feb 21	Los Angeles, CA	SEA-LAX 1-way	954 \| 12.5k	2.60
Mar 2	México City	LAX-MEX 1-way	1553 \| 17.5k	24.90
Mar 10	San Jose, CA	MEX-DFW-SJC 1-way	2374 \| 35k	47.20
Mar 20	NW Arkansas	SFO-DFW-XNA 1-way	1745 \| 12.5k	5.00
Mar 26	Houston, TX	XNA-DFW-IAH 1-way	505 \| 25k	5.00
Apr 3	Toronto, ON	IAH-DFW-YYZ 1-way	1424 \| 12.5k	5.00
Apr 10	Minneapolis, MN	YYZ-ORD-MSP 1-way	770 \| 12.5k	61.26
Apr 17	Washington, DC	MSP-ORD-DCA 1-way	946 \| 25k	5.00
May 2	Nassau, Bahamas	BWI-MIA-NAS 1-way	1130 \| 17.5k	5.00
May 29	Vancouver, BC	NAS-MIA-DFW-YVR 1-way	3058 \| 30k	83.50
TOTALS	—	routes map	21485 \| 260k	315.46

Now, that was fun!

Note that the equivalent frequent flyer miles reimbursed amounted to a total of 260,000 miles. With plane tickets obtained by redeeming miles, the actual miles flown came to a total of just over 21,485 miles, which would be the equivalent of making my way 86-percent around the world (with the Earth’s circumference equal to about 24,900 miles).

All of the flights were intracontinental, but that was still a lot of miles flown in the first five months of 2012.

Disclosure: No Connection, Unpaid, My Own Opinions. I have not received any compensation for writing this content and I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein. Full credits for the map are found here. This post is published on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-1sP.