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Every now and then, my slacking pays off. I normally go for the aisle seat on plane flights, but since I moved a little too slowly on buying my plane tickets for my trip last week, I ended up with a window seat on the flight back from San Diego.
What I got was a view that was much better than the inflight movie Aeon Flux and even better than the cute girl in the seat next to me. The clear weather showed me sights that should've been backed with James Earl Jones narrating about the "majesty of the American West." I saw snow-capped mountains give way to to deserts that had towns perched on the very edge of them as though they were on a lake. I saw perfectly flat land suddenly burst into jagged peaks and then collapse again. I saw wildfires sending plumes of brown smoke for miles. I saw winding rivers that made me wish I'd tried harder to remember the terms and phenomenons from my single semester of geology. Alternately, I wish I had Doug sitting next to me telling me what everything was.
As we headed further east, the cloud cover increased, and what I could see through it wasn't nearly as exciting. It was as though I was being told, "See, the west is cooler," by God/Mother Nature/the cold facts of science.
Procrastination pays, kids. Take heed.
8 comments:
Ah yes, the window seat. Sure, it's cramped, and you have to shove the sleeping guy (or cute girl...) next to you in order to go to the bathroom, but the view can be well worth it. If it's clear, I like to try and guess where I am both geographically and geologically during the trip - and then check the maps once I get home. Yeah, pretty nerdy, but it passes the time quickly. Nothing beats flying over the American West, but I also have to give props to the Southern Appalachians (the trip from Nashville to DC is especially choice) - if only because it's a bit more challenging to try and figure out the landforms, and because I'm so much more familiar with them.
Anyway, wish on was on that trip too - San Diego sounds nice! Oh, and here's a pretty cool looking book to check out about the subject:
window seat
That book would have been GREAT to have on this trip. I kept trying to figure out where I was until I realized that I had no shot in hell of knowing, so I quit trying and just enjoyed the view. But I love trying to figure out cities from the sky, and I love those displays they have in some of them new-fangled airplanes where they can show you where the plane is. I want that thing on all the time.
I was totally serious in wishing you were there, though you probably would have hated it: "What's that, Doug? How about that? What's it called when the river does that loopy thing? Where are we now, Doug? Huh? Huh?! WHERE?!"
Oh, believe me, I would have loved to have been bothered. I've been tempted many times to annoy the complete stranger next to me with crap like "Well look at that, I believe that's Evansville, Indiana on the Ohio River!" and "That mountain and valley has to be a dipping anticline! Cool!" But, I don't, and just sit there holding my excitement back. So, having someone around that would actually be interested, would be really great. Cory is a good sport, but she usually sleeps on the plane, so that's no good!
I always try for the window seat. You get the view, you don't have to get up every time someone in your row has to go to the bathroom (and I guess I have a strong enough bladder that I almost never have to worry about going myself except on real long flights), and you don't have the beverage cart banging into your elbow. Plus if you feel like sleeping, you have something besides the person next to you to lean against.
I flew on JetBlue to the Bahamas last week and they had the individual television screens with the GPS display showing you where you are. That's especially helpful when you're just over the boring ocean. This summer I have to fly to L.A. so I'll get to see the grand canyon and all that cool stuff.
i must retract my statement about cory falling asleep on aeroplanes. she has informed and corrected me to let me know that she has not, in fact, fallen asleep in any moving vehicle since she has met me...mostly due to the fact that i am excessively "chatty" in said moving vehicles. also, i would also like to clarify that she was also a geology major and also has a vested interest in the canyons, fault scarps, and plateaus below. that is all.
If you'd procrastinated a little more, you could have missed your flight entirely and gone back home and seen all the same stuff on Google Earth. You get all the same mind-blowing visuals, but without the pesky trip to San Diego! Plus, you're not just limited to the grandeur of the American West: an easy search option lets you quickly seek out and soar over fantastical geographic features such as Greensboro and I-95!
Yes, I must admit, the views of the Rockies from my bosses corner office are indeed majestic, especially now that they have about a billion inches of snow upon them. In fact, any day that is clear and sunny out here (typically 300/yr)and you face west you get stunning views.
"Initiative comes to those who wait,"
--Alex the droog
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