Flying a plane is kind of like playing a video game — just a few thousand feet in the air.

But there is nothing in the video game world that can compare with the views of the San Juan Islands from the sky. Our little group of islands is spectacular. Patches of lush greenery dotted with tiny buildings and magnificently blue lakes all in a great expanse of ocean.

I recently had the chance to see our island home from the sky during my first flying lesson with the Airline Training Academy of Puget Sound based at the Anacortes airport.