Soaring

Did I mention that I love to travel? And to fly? Even these days when air travel has become so much of a hassle, I enjoy the sum of the experiences that make up the journey. So it was on this trip to Palm Springs. Because of the near last-minute decision to come, my routing was through Chicago AND San Francisco. Without being able to tell you exactly why, I appreciated the chance to go through SFO. I had been here before, but in the time before children. That was a long time ago. Changing from the American Airlines flight to the Alaska Airlines service to PSP took me through the vacant Terminal 2 building. It was eerie -- a long curving passage past maybe one hundred identical empty ticket counters and large, open spaces where people once (and would again, after the renovation) funneled into the departure gate area. I was on a trek that not too many people need to make, it seems. In the ten minute transit from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1, I met only two people going the other way and saw one family using the big empty space for their young children to de-energize as they took long laps.

As interesting as this was, it was not the part of the journey out here that was most memorable. That distinction belongs to the short flight from La Crosse to Chicago. We took off on an overcast morning and were quickly into the clouds. It wasn't long, however, before we broke through the first layer and were skimming along the gray-white cotton balls of the cloud tops with the slate gray underside of the layer above us. The sun came up and shone through the opening between the layers, lighting up the top of the lower layer like a bed of glowing coals. The light in the cloud gap to the east then turned from a dim gray haze to a brilliant display of orange and pink. It is an amazing thing to fly. Just amazing. Do I love it? Yes I Do!

Biking? Well,being here in Palm Springs offers no opportunity for riding so I might as well write about the trip, don't you think? But there was that ride in Washington state. Up Stephens Pass. Into the clouds. Soaring of a different ilk, but soaring just the same. So, we have a theme at least.

I did get in 54.1 miles since last Tuesday and now am looking at 493.6 miles to go to reach my goal of 5,000 in 2007.