Two races in two weeks. I’m setting new personal bests here. This wasn’t nearly as prestigious as the Indy 500 the week before, but it has basically turned in to an annual get together with my cousin. This was for the Monster Energy Cup race at Pocono, a new experience for both of us. Since my cousin lives in northern Virginia he drove. We all know if the drive exceeds 4 hours I’d fly it, so to the skies I went. For the race itself, it probably would have been a little easier if I had flown to Wilkes Barre/Scranton, but fares were through-the-roof expensive. I flew Philadelphia instead, plus it gave us a chance to explore a new city for both of us. Dating myself here, but the last time I flew through PHL I took off on a US Airways Fokker 100 . Philadelphia also allowed me to have a little of my own fun on the way home . This was Friday June 2 through Tuesday June 5.

My flight up there wasn’t too early, not til 11:45. My segment up was on Southwest. I could have flown Delta for the same price, but the only aircraft option was the MD-88 . No thank you.

Typical for me, I got to ATL early enough to walk around and see stuff.

Like these poor saps waiting for international security.

Or N857DZ. Carried me home from Chicago a couple summers ago.

And N8314L that carried my cousin and me from the race in Michigan last summer.

So I made my way to the end of concourse C. I was all the way at gate C1, the exact opposite end from where I departed last week. Related, since concourse C is finished, the renovations to the domestic concourses are nice. They are so much brighter and feel nice and open. The gate signs with flight information is a nice touch too.
Over the morning I saw several aircraft I had flown on before. Turns out the one carrying me was no different. My flight today was on N437WN, which operated my first ever Southwest flight to Denver back in 2014. She’s received a new coat of paint since then. Sadly no new interior though.

Southwest Airlines Flight 3734
ATL-PHL
Depart ATL – 11:40 am (was actually 11:45)
Arrive PHL – 1:40 pm (was actually 1:40)
Boeing 737-700
N437WN

There are no photos in the database of this aircraft in the new paint, so I’ll abstain for now.

I sat in 5A hoping for some good views.
When we pushed we pointed the nose to runway 26L.

I can’t read tail numbers, but the Lone Star One and a 737-800 were the only action on the odd-numbered side of C.
https://youtu.be/sHyDWjBY3uI
Here is a nice 4K video of takeoff from runway 26L. Pretty average.



Decent views of Atlanta. I was on the wrong side of the plane to see my house, but as cloudy as it was it may have been a moot point.

It was a nice day once we got up to altitude.


Crossing the Chesapeake Bay. Makes you appreciate how huge a body of water it is. Approach to Philadelphia was pretty cool. We were coming in on runway 9R.


Once we got over Maryland and turned north we headed in to a bit of a rain cloud. Pictures don’t do it justice.

Harrah’s casino.
https://youtu.be/i-i9OLusRuI
Landing on runway 9R. He buttered the bread on that landing.


I definitely wasn’t in Delta Land anymore.

We parked at gate E13, and I walked outside to wait on my cousin to pick me up. From there it was off to our hotel and a few days of fun.

We have this tradition of finding Brazilian steakhouses in cities we visit. This time was my favorite of all time, Fogo de Chão.

Day 2, Sunday was race day.

It started off with breakfast at Federal Donuts. That was a great find.



Pocono Raceway is a huge 2.5 mile track in the tiny town of Long Pond.

My two favorite drivers, Matt Kenseth and Erik Jones in the same frame.

Oh yeah, there was pulled pork mac and cheese there too. Surprisingly good combo.


Pit stops.

I need some #6 gear. I don’t have any yet.
Monday, our last day was there just in case the race got rained out. Thankfully, it didn’t, so we took the day to explore Philadelphia, something neither one of us had done.

Instead of driving we just took the train in to town.




We did one meal at Pat’s and one meal at Geno’s at the bookends of the day. Pat’s was definitely a bigger sandwich, but I thought Geno’s had more flavor. I quite enjoyed both, though. I just wish they took credit cards.


Obligatory Independence Hall and Liberty Bell.


Graves of Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross. We did the US Mint and a couple other items walking around as well.

Sitting by the river with a British Airways 747 landing.

Then came Tuesday and time to go. This bit I made a little fun for myself. There were several direct flight options, but it had been over a year since I last flew JetBlue, so I figured that needed to happen. Plus it scored me a new airport with Fort Lauderdale. It was an early morning, up before 5 am. My cousin dropped me off at the airport at about 5:30 and he headed for home.

I was on N584JB this morning.

I captured this in my exploring. Hell of a name for an aircraft.

JetBlue Airways Flight 375
PHL-FLL
Depart PHL – 7:00am (was actually 6:47)
Arrive FLL – 9:45 am (was actually 9:12)
Airbus A320
N584JB
“Blue Fox”

This thing has gotten some new paint since it was last spotted here.

I was in seat 15F. There is no Peasantville on JetBlue

Y’all, I’m 6’3” and have plenty of room.

There was a decent amount of action going on this morning.
https://youtu.be/LJK2ZlffNyM
Takeoff from runway 27L. Love the sound of the V2500 engines on the A320.


Would have been a little more scenic if we had taken off to the northeast, but oh well. Also one of my windows was scratched all to hell as some pictures will indicate.

Since I had time I may as well catch a little Sports Center. Wifi was having issues. I figured it was just because most of the flight was over water, but I didn’t have it on my Atlanta flight either. Not a deal breaker, but it would have been cool to follow us on Flight Radar 24 and all that.

Again, I’m such a boring in-flight snacker. Unrelated, I much prefer the little water bottle to a cup with ice. Less to deal with.

Dover International Speedway. Something about me and racetracks from the air.

I think this is PHF, but I’m not 100% on that. After skimming the Outer Banks there wasn’t much to see since we were over open water.

That was a pretty cool approach since I was sitting on the right side of the aircraft. I imagine the people on the left found it immensely boring.
https://youtu.be/9hw7BuiJ7nE
Here is a very long video of landing on runway 28R. Unfortunately as early as we were we had to sit on the ramp and wait on a gate.

Azul A330. Beautiful.


We ended up next to these guys all resting. I didn’t time it, but I think it was 15 minutes until we got to a gate. We did eventually get gate E7. I didn’t have tons of time to explore, so I hung around E and F.

And man was it crowded.
After a couple gate changes I waited at gate F9 for my flight home.

JetBlue Airways Flight 468
FLL-ATL
Depart FLL – 11:38 am (was actually 11:36)
Arrive ATL – 1:38 pm (was actually 1:13)
Airbus A320
N706JB
“As Blue as it Gets”


There was N706JB. I think it was coming in from EWR.

I was a little farther forward, sitting in 7F this time. I like the way JetBlue does boarding the old-school back to front way. It moves along so much better.
Once we pushed we took it out to the same runway I landed on, runway 28R. Excellent views as we turned north.



Lots to see, even though I had no idea what any of it was except for Fort Lauderdale/Broward County in general.

SFB as we eased our way north.

Yeah, I know quality is garbage, but it’s DAB and Daytona International Speedway.

Downtown Jacksonville.

JAX

I went a little more exotic on the snacking this time.

And just a nice day in general until we started to take it down toward Atlanta.

Lake Jackson

Stone Mountain

Atlanta itself
https://youtu.be/6qGrelyg5LM
And landing on runway 27L.

We headed to concourse E, where another A320 was parked as well. This is twice in a row I’ve landed in Atlanta at E. I’ll probably never do that again.

We pulled in to gate E32. Last time I used E32 I was boarding a 9 hour flight to Zurich on a Delta 767.

After picking up my bag and my car I headed for home in a race against the rain. I love these Nascar weekends that we do. They’ve become a tradition I hope continues on for a long time. JetBlue has won my heart (as if the trip to LAX last year didn’t do that already). I’m so glad I went a little out of the way to fly them. If you get a chance to take a trip with them, do it. You won’t be disappointed.

Great flights. Fun trip. New cities are fun. My next flights in a couple weeks are going to be very special taking the A350 to Los Angeles. Hope to see some of y’all on that flight. Thanks for reading

Nice report. You're taking the A350 to LAX? On a domestic flight??

As someone who has flown jetBlue his fair share in the last few years, I have to say as nice of an airline as they are, you're lucky you weren't delayed. My flights are always late with them, granted I'm flying out of JFK, but still. I've flown them on JFK-DAB 8 times each way in the last two years and only two of them were on time or early flying JFK-DAB, DAB-JFK had one cancellation, and other delays, but at the start we were usually early depending on the time of day. Their on time performance is really hit and miss.

Anyways I digress, great trip report! Glad you had a good time at the race!

pdx wrote:

Nice report. You're taking the A350 to LAX? On a domestic flight??

Yep. There's still quite a few seats open. It's bookable as flight 8803 on July 1.

N776AU wrote:

pdx wrote:

Nice report. You're taking the A350 to LAX? On a domestic flight??

Yep. There's still quite a few seats open. It's bookable as flight 8803 on July 1.

Thanks! I was thinking from ATL, but I see it's from DTW on 01JUL. Is this a one time shot? How do
you find out about these special flights? I search for them, but it's really difficult!

pdx wrote:

N776AU wrote:

pdx wrote:

Nice report. You're taking the A350 to LAX? On a domestic flight??

Yep. There's still quite a few seats open. It's bookable as flight 8803 on July 1.

Thanks! I was thinking from ATL, but I see it's from DTW on 01JUL. Is this a one time shot? How do
you find out about these special flights? I search for them, but it's really difficult!

Yeah, just a one-time thing, I think to reposition it to fly to PVG. I got lucky with this one, someone on this site posted it in the general aviation forum. I'm not much good at finding them either.

N776AU wrote:

pdx wrote:

N776AU wrote:

Yep. There's still quite a few seats open. It's bookable as flight 8803 on July 1.

Thanks! I was thinking from ATL, but I see it's from DTW on 01JUL. Is this a one time shot? How do
you find out about these special flights? I search for them, but it's really difficult!

Yeah, just a one-time thing, I think to reposition it to fly to PVG. I got lucky with this one, someone on this site posted it in the general aviation forum. I'm not much good at finding them either.

Too many forums to read! Wish I would've known a few months ago. Enjoy and be sure and post a report!

Great domestic trip report - thanks!

Only thing to consider is to downsize those pictures. Those I sampled were 4032x3024 pixels, or 1.8MB. They will not all load in my browser at the same time, neither on the handheld or desktop. Just consider scaling them down to 800x600 or at least 1024x768 next time.

Again, thanks for an excellent trip report; especially cool to see you taking the subway to get to your destinations in Philly.

Don't know if you realized it at the time, but in your last Philadelphia photo ("Sitting by the river with a British airways 747 landing"), America's Flagship, the S.S. United States is sitting at a berth in the Background (2 Huge Red/White/Blue Funnels). It's awaiting a decision on its future.