I remember driving up to NYC along the NJ Turnpike a few years ago. I had driven non-stop from Richmond, and I was starting to tire of the endless nothings that whizzed by the drive. Then, out of nowhere, the cityscape of NYC appeared. To me, it was an awesome sight ... I had gone from being a lone driver to being bathed in the lights of a city of millions. Since then, I've taken notice of drives into cities.

Although not as dramatic, my favorite drive into San Diego is coming south along the 5. It doesn't have breathtaking contrast that the drive into NYC has, but I love how the cityscape breaks over the highway horizon with the beautiful bay to your right. 

And sometimes, if you time it right, you can catch an airplane landing at San Diego International Airport, which is right near downtown:

(The darkness is not vignetting, but are the results of shooting through a chain-link fence)

Another angle of the airplanes landing:

 Some interesting factoids about San Diego's airport, via Wikipedia:

• the busiest single-runway large hub commercial service airport in the United States
• occupies the smallest land footprint of any large commercial airport in the United States (I wonder how they define "large commercial airport")
• due to WW2, SAN was made "jet-ready' long before jet passenger planes came into widespread service