Catching the Force

I decided to check Flight Radar this morning.  I don't know why, but I thought I would check and see where the United Airlines Star Wars 737 was heading.  I was happy to find out that it was heading to Detroit today.  Well, I was partially happy as I was going to the MAC Championship game.  It wasn't a particularly good game nor did I really have a dog in the hunt, so I left early.

 Sadly, I didn't leave early enough as I was hoping to still catch it in the air.  I'm not terribly happy with this picture but at least I got a picture of it.  I hope that it comes this way again.  At any rate, it was coming in from Denver.

 A Delta Airlines 737 arriving from Tampa.

 Another angle of that plane.

 It was followed by a my favorite aircraft.

 Which is the 757 and this one was arriving from Fort Lauderdale.

 Recently, I saw an article that United ordered a bunch of A321s to replace their 757 fleet.  I know that these planes are getting old but it will still be sad to see these planes leave the skies.

 One more angle.

 I wasn't going to get another plane but I saw that there was another plane I was interested in catching.  It wasn't this one though.  This Spirit Airlines A320 was coming in from Tampa.

 It was followed by a 767.  I was surprised to see that it didn't have the winglets and then I found out that it was 767-400 which has the 777 style raked wingtips.

 This particular 767 was arriving from Frankfurt, Germany.

 I headed over to the other side of the airport because I saw that there was another 757 coming in.

 This 757-300 was coming in from Seattle.

One more shot of it.

Pictures from the MAC Championship Game

So I went down to the MAC Championship game today.  It is the first time where they held it on a Saturday instead of a Friday evening.  I hope they continue this because it makes it easier for working people (and fans from the teams) to attend the game.  It wasn't too bad of a day though.

The game is held in Detroit at Ford Field.  It's been there for a while and I think it will be held there for a while because it represents a good central point for the MAC.  I know it works for me because it's relatively close.

 One of the majorettes for the Miami band.

 The Central Michigan band takes the field.

 One of the Central Michigan majorettes.

 There were quite a few Central Michigan fans at the game.

 The Miami Redhawk mascot.  Apparently, his name is Swoop too.

 The Central Michigan color guard during the halftime show.

One of the Miami running backs finding a hole.  As always, if you want to see more game shots, go to Hustle Belt.

A Wolverine Kind of Day

It has actually been a while since I've had a proper Wolverine kind of day.  Once again, I was going to try to head up to Owosso to catch the Pere Marquette 1225 but it didn't sound like the weather was going to cooperate.  It was actually cooperative here but that changed as you headed north.  Then I was thinking that I would see if I could catch some ships but it seems like they got stuck in the nasty weather on Lake Superior.  So then I decided that it would be a good day to mostly relax.

 Since it's not that far of a drive, I did decide to catch the Westbound Wolverine.  This is the one that passes Ypsilanti at roughly 11 in the morning.

 It is the one that heads south from Pontiac until it hits Detroit and then it heads west to Chicago.

 Today the train was running about a half hour late.

 But it was still nice to catch.  I wasn't expecting to see one of the older engines.  They much have anticipated some traffic as there were more cars on it.

 Then I decided to catch the eastbound Wolverine.  This one passes by around 1:15 or so.

 But I still decided to catch it.

 I was happy to see it was one of the newer engines.  I didn't notice the puddle until I looked at the pictures.  If I noticed it sooner, I would have tried to use it better.

 At any rate, I think this is a pretty cool looking engine.

 And it starts to pass by.

Then it continues on to Detroit and points beyond.

The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train Passes Belleville

A couple days ago, I read an article that said that the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train was going to be passing by.  I didn't catch it last year because I didn't see anything about it.  Nor did I catch it the year before for obvious reasons.  I almost wasn't going to catch it this year because the article said that they would be passing through Michigan with their lights off.

 I found the group dedicated to it on Facebook and people were posting updates of its location.  It was supposed to leave Windsor last night at 6:30.  I saw the post that it had passed the Michigan Central Train Station, so I decided to head over to Belleville to catch it.
I used this picture to gate the settings I would need on my camera.

 It took longer to catch it than I had planned.  We had heard that it passed Metro Airport, so I thought it would be passing soon.  And then we heard about this eastbound train passing through.  That meant the Holiday Train would have to wait on a siding for this train to pass.

 It wasn't long for the Holiday Train to appear.  You could tell it was getting close as its headlight shined on this building.

 I don't think this is a particularly good picture but I wanted to shot it because you can see the shadows of the people that were there.  There was a pretty good crowd.  I'm going to guess there was a pretty good crowd all along the route.

 And then the train appeared at an angle where I could get a picture.  I really think this is cool that they do this.  I think they have been doing this since 1999.

 Unfortunately, they have not stopped in Michigan in a while.  I don't think they own the tracks through Michigan and just used them to connect to the Chicago area.

 Maybe one of these years, they will actually stop here.  If not, I may have to just catch it in Windsor.

 The engine carries a few cares and they are all decorated.

 Just in case you forget what the train is.

 Some nice Christmas scenes.

And one more before moving on.

The Alpena Passes By Detroit

On Saturday I was going to head up to Owosso to try to catch the Pere Marquette 1225 but I didn't feel up to waking up that morning.  So  I hung around my place until I took a look at Marine Traffic.

 I saw that the Alpena was heading down.  I also saw that it wasn't going to be passing Detroit until later in the afternoon.  So I decided to watch the Michigan game.

 

 The game wasn't over but I decided to head down to Detroit since it was over for the most part.  I thought that I left myself with enough time but she was already passing Belle Isle as I arrived.

 But that was okay as I didn't have to use my big lens.

 Given the lighting, that was probably a good  thing.

 One more shot a Belle Isle.

 I decided to head down to Riverside Park because I wanted to get some different angles.  I didn't have too much time as my lighting was getting progressively worse.

 But a little lightening before posting helped.

 She was heading down from Alpena and heading to the cement dock in Detroit.

 She passes Windsor.

 Passing under a lit Ambassador Bridge.

  She was making preparations for docking.

One more shot before leaving.