Across The Country

  

 Being in the air was less scary than I imagined. Before we had taken flight, I dealt with my claustrophobia and anxiety, and thankfully I didn't have another battle with either when we were in the air.  (Partially due to my hefty supply of gummy bear candy). I loved watching the clouds. I had only ever been able to imagine what it was like to look down on the tops of the clouds, with only one little pane of glass between me and them.  It was better than the movies show. 

    There was a little map on the back of the seat in front of me, that had our plane location.  I loved looking down on the earth, my imagination taking flight as I tried to imagine what the people in each state were up to.  We flew across so many states, I'm not even sure which ones they were. But the variety was amazing! It seemed like there was always something different to see.  When we flew over deserts, the landscape was either brown with crop circles of various shades of green, looking like a patchwork quilt, or brown mountains with deep gorges that were so obviously shaped by water.  (I have to insert some facetiousness here. "What?! Entire mountains underwater? When on earth would that have ever happened?") And then we flew over the Rocky Mountains, and I was enthralled. They were beautiful but also very cold and scary looking. 

    The landscape continued changing, and I enjoyed every moment of it. More crop circles. Deserts. Mountains, rugged and rolling. Vast stretches of flat land with nothing but the occasional river twisting across the landscape, and roads crisscrossing, many stretching straight for as far as you could see.  We flew directly over Yosemite and I got to see the massive granite half dome from the sky. This one I knew I would be visiting the next day, but it was still a treat to see it from the sky.  We flew just out of sight of the Grand Canyon, but I could see the twisting,  rugged river gorges scattering out - cracks in the crust of the earth. My eye followed them south as far as I could see, and I felt a surge of excitement realizing I had been just that close to the Grand Canyon. 

    As we neared California, it felt like time was slowing down. This was taking too long. I got restless. I have been wanting to see San Francisco for years, and yet all I could do was watch our little graphic plane inch across the country. It was going SO SLOW. And then I had to grin at myself. We were hurtling through the air at over 500 miles an hour. We were anything but slow.  I chalked it up to the whole "Watched Pot Never Boils" theory, and put on a movie to help the time go faster. 

    We finally approached San Francisco. Flaps on the wings rose. The plane noticeably slowed. I quickly stuffed all my stuff into my bag and peered eagerly out the window. There it was. I reveled in the colors and symmetry. We flew over the colorful salt flats on the outskirts of the city. Soon all we could see was the streets and buildings. I drank it in. So much to see. Then - there was the landing strip.  Since we had a connecting flight we had dealt with already, I knew the landing was a little bit scary, and I braced myself. (my husbands arm probably had finger marks for a while). 

    The plane groaned, the wing flaps came up again to slow the plane further.  I saw the wheels as they came out of their protective nests.  The plane slowed further, and then came the noise of the wheels on the tarmac. It was pretty loud, and we were still careening along at an extremely fast rate.  My hands tightened, my feet bracing, and the anxiety spiking just a tiny bit.  But we were in good hands. The plane did come to a stop, and as I stood in the isle waiting for what felt like forever to finally get off
the plane, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had finally flown on not one, but TWO planes, and I was still in one piece.  I couldn't wait to explore San Francisco and the national parks of the Sierra Nevada.