Travel Broadens the Mind
I hear that but never really get to see it. For the moment, though, I am seeing it. We are in Winter Haven, Florida, with cloudy weather and unbelievable humidity.
We left my parents' house (well, the neighbour's house) at 1330, headed to Newark Airpor and the gods of travel bestowed their blessings of good travel. We were going to use long-term parking, and we were looking for it when Luis realised that some smart-ass in marketing changed the name of long-term parking to "economy" parking. Well. At the distance this was from the airport, it should have been called "unbeievable" parking. It was quite literally miles from the terminals. As in about three miles from it. No walking, but no tram (or, as I call it, the moneyrail system), just a rickety bus. However, when we showed up at the unbelievable parking area, it was full, so we were shunted to the Daily parking (which used to be long-term parking) which cost the same as the "economy" or unbelievable parking. So we were much, much closer with this parking but paid $15 instead of $24 a day...
So we walked to the covered building that housed the moneyrail (yes, I realise it is called a "monorail" but when we were here in Disney when I was sixteen, my cousin Renee and I called it the moneyrail (even though it did not cost anything) and that has stuck). The tram came in right away and we boarded and went through Station C, B A, Terminals A and B before finally arriving in Terminal C. Wahoo! We rolled of of that, headed to the apprpriate gate areas, and waited patiently for the line to move.
The line was hardly the end of the world, although I could plainly smell cigar smoke. I pointed this out to Luis and I think I have some idea as to who the guilty party was - some woman kept turning around to stare at me when I said something. I would smell it intermittenly, say something and look around to find the perpetrator. I hate smoking and cigar smoking just that much more! It was absolutely disgusting. But she would look at me as though I was saying something bad. Well, then. Who is the bad one? Me for smelling it and saying something about it or her for spending time with someone who reeks of this?
Some guy who was directing the flow of first class ticket holders pulled us and a couple of groups ahead of us out of the line and sent us over to the International flight staff to take our bags. Things moved along quite a bit faster with that. And travelling first class allows you a higher weight maximum and an extra bag! OK. We had two for Luis and one for me, and handed them over to the guy who was helping us. We got stickers for each bag and went off to work our way through the Security weirdness.
The whole Security thing was not too crazy. I already was in the habit of going through with my shoes off and ready to go through the x-ray machine. I removed my belt at the Security person's urging and the jacket and bag were in bins. I did not need to remove my jewelry, not that I'd have minded. I walked though, got my stuff, popped my clogs back on (I wore those on purpose to make that whole process a lot easier). Luis came through and had to sit down to tied his shoes up. We got our things and headed to the gate. I stopped to get a bag of munchies and some candy for the trip. We found our gate and sat down after Luis canvassed the place for power for his laptop.
It was maybe twenty minutes before the flight attendant or door person or whomever the individual was to get us boarding is called for First Class people to pre-board. Nice! We went right through, found our seats and settled in. Immediately a flight attendant showed up to get our order and give us drinks! The seats... oh, the seats! Heavy thick leather recliner chairs with the nice tables folded into the seat arm, with folding head rests and leg room that is unimaginable! It was heavenly. I don't know if I could suffer through coach anymore! This is how everyone should travel!
We were there for a little while and it began to rain. It did not delay us, particularly. In fact, there is no such thing as a flight that takes off on time. Our flight was for 1625 and it left closer to 1700. OK... The flight back was off by 20 minutes but was considered on time. Hhhhmmmm...
We finally took off as daylight was nearly gone, but we ended up mired in clouds about thirty-five minutes after we took off. It was pea soup. On the ground the clarity was fine, it was just wet. The plane began to move slowly about to get in line. I was watching the flights come in, one every sixty seconds. It was amazing. In fact, I could see about three flights lined up one after the other to come in. The visibility was good enough to make out the three closest flights coming in. And interspresed with that were those of us waiting to take off.
The plane began to taxi and the engine was suddenly quite loud. I could hear it very clearly revving for the strain of lifting up the weight of the 757. It was an amazing feeling! I love flying - the whole process of take-off, flying up, banking, going through the clouds (when there are any) and leveling off, the sights to be seen, the flight, the drifting down, the landing, just everything! It is wonderful. So I was very excited when I felt that strange, heavy but light at the same time feeling that you only get from lifting off.
Flying with me has to be an annoying experience for anyone. I am all worked up and excited, taking a million photos out the window and bouncing up and down in the seat! I'm like the bluebird of happiness on cocaine... all happy and hyper and smiling and exploding with energy and thrilled at flying. For seasoned, I-hate-to-travel people like Luis, this is a highly annoying thing to go through...
So we were a little while getting through the very thick heavy cloud cover that was laying heavily over New Jersey. In fact, it being a two hour flight, I am sure we were not over New Jersey by the time we were over the clouds. I was reading "The Planets" by Dava Sobel (see the posting about this wonderful book posted shortly before Christmas), but kept stopping to look out the window to see if I could see the stars. By the time we did poke through the heavy cloud layer, the sun was no longer fully gone but it was light by the southern sky - not enough to photograph, unfortunately, but enough that not a single star was visible. It was a really amazing sight, though, with the thick, milky white clouds below and little strands and wisps sticking up and the richest blue - that lovely crepescular blue that you have about twenty minutes before sunrise and after sunset. It was gorgeous. Staggeringly beautiful!
By the time the darkness covered the entire sky and the stars began to appear one by one, I was done reading and then writing a letter. I had to stop to stare, though, when Orion leapt out at me from just outside and slightly behind my window! Not only could I so clearly see all of Orion, which is also delightfully visible just standing ouside of my house (yes, even with all of the light pollution from New York City), but the nebula was even visible. It was not super-close up, obviously, but I could see what was clearly too big to be anything but that! It was incredible. There were so many visible stars twinkling and shining brightly in the clear, uncluttered, unfettered, unpolluted night sky!
And then, as if the astronomical sights weren't enough, there was suddenly a very far off but localised burst of white-blue light - cloud-to-cloud lightning! Oh, oh, oh...! I tried, I really did, to capture this increbdible sight on film (well, on the memory in my camera!) but I was wholly unsuccessful. I must have used up over 100 images on empty blackness trying to capture this gorgeous mystical sight, but to no avail. I was blown away by it, though. It was entirely worth it. I certainly won't forget that sight anytime soon!
It was a lovely trip, really. I was dog-tired and fairly burned out from the holiday festivities, highly intense emotional state of the last couple of days and lack of sleep (I'm in the process of weaning myself off of the Ambien, which is the absolute best thing I have done this year (what is left of it) - I feel much, much better). But I was deliriously happy being on a plane, going to some place I have not been to, spending the time at Luis' side. He never shed a tear that I saw but I think he felt good having me there.
We left my parents' house (well, the neighbour's house) at 1330, headed to Newark Airpor and the gods of travel bestowed their blessings of good travel. We were going to use long-term parking, and we were looking for it when Luis realised that some smart-ass in marketing changed the name of long-term parking to "economy" parking. Well. At the distance this was from the airport, it should have been called "unbeievable" parking. It was quite literally miles from the terminals. As in about three miles from it. No walking, but no tram (or, as I call it, the moneyrail system), just a rickety bus. However, when we showed up at the unbelievable parking area, it was full, so we were shunted to the Daily parking (which used to be long-term parking) which cost the same as the "economy" or unbelievable parking. So we were much, much closer with this parking but paid $15 instead of $24 a day...
So we walked to the covered building that housed the moneyrail (yes, I realise it is called a "monorail" but when we were here in Disney when I was sixteen, my cousin Renee and I called it the moneyrail (even though it did not cost anything) and that has stuck). The tram came in right away and we boarded and went through Station C, B A, Terminals A and B before finally arriving in Terminal C. Wahoo! We rolled of of that, headed to the apprpriate gate areas, and waited patiently for the line to move.
The line was hardly the end of the world, although I could plainly smell cigar smoke. I pointed this out to Luis and I think I have some idea as to who the guilty party was - some woman kept turning around to stare at me when I said something. I would smell it intermittenly, say something and look around to find the perpetrator. I hate smoking and cigar smoking just that much more! It was absolutely disgusting. But she would look at me as though I was saying something bad. Well, then. Who is the bad one? Me for smelling it and saying something about it or her for spending time with someone who reeks of this?
Some guy who was directing the flow of first class ticket holders pulled us and a couple of groups ahead of us out of the line and sent us over to the International flight staff to take our bags. Things moved along quite a bit faster with that. And travelling first class allows you a higher weight maximum and an extra bag! OK. We had two for Luis and one for me, and handed them over to the guy who was helping us. We got stickers for each bag and went off to work our way through the Security weirdness.
The whole Security thing was not too crazy. I already was in the habit of going through with my shoes off and ready to go through the x-ray machine. I removed my belt at the Security person's urging and the jacket and bag were in bins. I did not need to remove my jewelry, not that I'd have minded. I walked though, got my stuff, popped my clogs back on (I wore those on purpose to make that whole process a lot easier). Luis came through and had to sit down to tied his shoes up. We got our things and headed to the gate. I stopped to get a bag of munchies and some candy for the trip. We found our gate and sat down after Luis canvassed the place for power for his laptop.
It was maybe twenty minutes before the flight attendant or door person or whomever the individual was to get us boarding is called for First Class people to pre-board. Nice! We went right through, found our seats and settled in. Immediately a flight attendant showed up to get our order and give us drinks! The seats... oh, the seats! Heavy thick leather recliner chairs with the nice tables folded into the seat arm, with folding head rests and leg room that is unimaginable! It was heavenly. I don't know if I could suffer through coach anymore! This is how everyone should travel!
We were there for a little while and it began to rain. It did not delay us, particularly. In fact, there is no such thing as a flight that takes off on time. Our flight was for 1625 and it left closer to 1700. OK... The flight back was off by 20 minutes but was considered on time. Hhhhmmmm...
We finally took off as daylight was nearly gone, but we ended up mired in clouds about thirty-five minutes after we took off. It was pea soup. On the ground the clarity was fine, it was just wet. The plane began to move slowly about to get in line. I was watching the flights come in, one every sixty seconds. It was amazing. In fact, I could see about three flights lined up one after the other to come in. The visibility was good enough to make out the three closest flights coming in. And interspresed with that were those of us waiting to take off.
The plane began to taxi and the engine was suddenly quite loud. I could hear it very clearly revving for the strain of lifting up the weight of the 757. It was an amazing feeling! I love flying - the whole process of take-off, flying up, banking, going through the clouds (when there are any) and leveling off, the sights to be seen, the flight, the drifting down, the landing, just everything! It is wonderful. So I was very excited when I felt that strange, heavy but light at the same time feeling that you only get from lifting off.
Flying with me has to be an annoying experience for anyone. I am all worked up and excited, taking a million photos out the window and bouncing up and down in the seat! I'm like the bluebird of happiness on cocaine... all happy and hyper and smiling and exploding with energy and thrilled at flying. For seasoned, I-hate-to-travel people like Luis, this is a highly annoying thing to go through...
So we were a little while getting through the very thick heavy cloud cover that was laying heavily over New Jersey. In fact, it being a two hour flight, I am sure we were not over New Jersey by the time we were over the clouds. I was reading "The Planets" by Dava Sobel (see the posting about this wonderful book posted shortly before Christmas), but kept stopping to look out the window to see if I could see the stars. By the time we did poke through the heavy cloud layer, the sun was no longer fully gone but it was light by the southern sky - not enough to photograph, unfortunately, but enough that not a single star was visible. It was a really amazing sight, though, with the thick, milky white clouds below and little strands and wisps sticking up and the richest blue - that lovely crepescular blue that you have about twenty minutes before sunrise and after sunset. It was gorgeous. Staggeringly beautiful!
By the time the darkness covered the entire sky and the stars began to appear one by one, I was done reading and then writing a letter. I had to stop to stare, though, when Orion leapt out at me from just outside and slightly behind my window! Not only could I so clearly see all of Orion, which is also delightfully visible just standing ouside of my house (yes, even with all of the light pollution from New York City), but the nebula was even visible. It was not super-close up, obviously, but I could see what was clearly too big to be anything but that! It was incredible. There were so many visible stars twinkling and shining brightly in the clear, uncluttered, unfettered, unpolluted night sky!
And then, as if the astronomical sights weren't enough, there was suddenly a very far off but localised burst of white-blue light - cloud-to-cloud lightning! Oh, oh, oh...! I tried, I really did, to capture this increbdible sight on film (well, on the memory in my camera!) but I was wholly unsuccessful. I must have used up over 100 images on empty blackness trying to capture this gorgeous mystical sight, but to no avail. I was blown away by it, though. It was entirely worth it. I certainly won't forget that sight anytime soon!
It was a lovely trip, really. I was dog-tired and fairly burned out from the holiday festivities, highly intense emotional state of the last couple of days and lack of sleep (I'm in the process of weaning myself off of the Ambien, which is the absolute best thing I have done this year (what is left of it) - I feel much, much better). But I was deliriously happy being on a plane, going to some place I have not been to, spending the time at Luis' side. He never shed a tear that I saw but I think he felt good having me there.
20 February 2007
Well. This is really old, from December. Again, I won't be able to fill it all in at this point. So here is what I have so far.
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