Flying

I flew today with my wife and son to Colorado. It was the first time since my son turned from an infant into a little boy. The last time, he stared blankly at a Baby Einstein dvd on the computer -- all the while drooling.

Ever since I was a kid, I always liked to look outside the plane window and watch the world go by. I've become so used to the scenery in the US that I can identify most places from 35,000 feet. While everyone else is watching the crappy airline movies that constantly get interrupted by the stewardess telling people to use the bathrooms in their cabin, I keep my head to the window, seeing rivers flow into oceans and towns turn into farmland. I've seen volcanos, glaciers and deserts. When you really think about it, it's pretty incredible that we can stuff ourselves into tubes and all of a sudden get a perspective that is not really humanly possible. Why then should we do things (read, watch movies, sleep) that we can do everywhere else?

Unfortunately, I'm usually alone in this regard. Most people just aren't interested. But today, it was different. Ben and I sat for hours at the window. We saw strato-cumulus forming into storms. We saw ski runs on mountains. We saw the Grand Canyon.

Suddenly, I don't feel so alone in the clouds.