What a lovely birthday present for you. A great way to view the skies.

I love to look out the window for the first and last 10 minutes of a flight - being horizontal with the clouds gives such an awesome vantage point. There are massive columns, awesome highlights and shadows, and shapes that you just can't fathom from the ground.

One of the coolest sights I've ever seen was when I flew from Tampa Florida to Salt Lake City Utah when Hurricane Katrina was on its way to Louisiana. There were massive cloud pillars laid out in somewhat of an arc, which reminded me of an ancient Greek ruin or perhaps Stonehenge. I imagine that they probably formed a circle, but I couldn't see the whole thing from where I was at. I didn't realize it was part of Katrina at the time, nor did I realize it when I drove through the edge of it on the way to the Airport. It was a few days later when Katrina was all over the news when I realized that those pillars and massive cloud formations was actually part of that monumental hurricane.