I love to fly, especially if the weather is good. I don't even mind the bumpy, turbulent flights as long as I have a window seat because whether fair or foul, the view through that 12" by 9" triple paned jet window is often mesmerizing.
The world looks very different from that altitude. You can begin to truly sense how big our planet is when it is stretched out beneath you, mile upon mile without apparent end. The geologist side of me appreciates the geomorphology passing by. Geomorphology is just a fancy word for the landforms and the study of the enormous natural forces at work that create them over eons. I love seeing the sorts of things I studied so long ago in college that often cannot be fully comprehended until you see them from above.
Crossing the country in a jet on a clear day is special treat. The long, verdant green rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains gradually give way to the Great Plains where the patchwork quilt of farmland, stitched together by roads and highways is occasionally embellished by the delicate, lacy dendritic patterns of streams and rivers. Every now and then passing cities and towns appear like fancy, flower-like knots holding it all together. The Mississippi River meanders this way and that on her slow journey to the Gulf of Mexico, meander scars and oxbow lakes testifying to her constantly shifting course.
When you get farther west, it's amazing how quickly the character of the passing landscape changes. The Rocky Mountains erupt from the plains as though they grew there overnight and the flat land begins to appear like a crinkled up piece of paper where it has been eroded away into canyons and rugged valleys. Flying across the southwestern United States, the transition is especially dramatic. Somewhere over New Mexico, the bright green of irrigated farmland suddenly gives way to myriad shades of red and brown. Stubborn rock layers stab up through the flat land like the bleached white bones of fallen cattle in a Georgia O'Keefe painting. The view is startling.
The panorama above is no less enthralling at times. At 30,000 to 40,000 feet, you're flying at the top of the troposphere. The bulk of our fragile envelope of air is beneath you and you can actually see it. Look to the horizon and you can see where the hazy, heavier layer ends. Above you in the stratosphere, the air thins considerably and the deep blue sky reflects that.
When the weather isn't quite so clear, I love watching the clouds, especially if they are piled up in mountains of cottony fluff. For a white-knuckled flier, the attendant turbulence is a nightmare but my meteorologist side is literally and figuratively on Cloud Nine. I love when the plane soars between the towering pillars and feathery canyons that look so substantial I sometimes imagine I could just step out and walk on them.
I even love night flights if the weather is clear when you can see roads and cities laid out below you like jeweled necklaces on a black velvet pallet. Witnessing a thunderstorm on a night flight and from a safe distance is an awe inspiring spectacle like no other. You're witnessing the raw power of the dynamic and endlessly restless atmosphere that protects us.
However even from that height, it's also possible to see the scars we have left upon the land. Houses are barely more than tiny motes, cars and people completely invisible. But irrigated patches and crop circles testify to our presence here. Wind turbines appear as white tooth picks, quarries as gaping wounds. We're not quite high enough to not notice the effects we have on our home in the cosmos.
A long flight across country can be often be tedious. You are essentially held captive in a hollow tube with little leg room and few amenities. But as long as I have a window seat and decent flying weather it is also a time for me to reflect, a time to savor, a chance to allow myself to feel the awe and reverence for this incredible gift. And to appreciate and feel gratitude for this fragile world and the One who created it.
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