146. Taking flight

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 16 Comments

Before a few weeks ago, I had flown once in my life. Well, twice if you don’t count it as a round trip. And that was a LONG time ago…

It’s not that I am was afraid to fly. I just like to drive. Or be with people that I know very well who are driving. Road trips make me happy. It makes me feel like I have really, really travelled to get where I’m going.

I’ve been to lots of airports. But always as the person who is hugging people hello or goodbye, never as the person who is flying there and back again.

And I’ve been on road trips to lots of places — I’ve been to the tip of Nova Scotia to San Diego; from Ashland,Wisconsin to Juarez, Mexico; from Boston to Santa Fe — and because I’ve been in a car, in between I’ve seen Chicago, St. Louis, San Antonio, Big Bend, Boulder, New Orleans, Nashville, Madison… I’d always rather drive, thank you very much.

But then, my daughter moved 2,590 miles away to California.

That’s a long drive.

Google Maps tells me it takes 36 hours to get there by car and that is driving straight through, no stops. 38 hours with traffic.

And maybe in some future life, I’ll be retired with extra time; for now though, we had to fly.

We were leaving Chicago at 8:30 am and flying nonstop to Oakland, landing at 11:15. Supposedly.

At about 7:45 the announcement was made. Flight 1350 to Oakland California was delayed. We wouldn’t be leaving until noon at the earliest. It was a mechanical problem: not anything one could glibly say “Eh, just fix it and let’s get going, shall we?”

So we sat around. And sat around some more. I vaguely wondered if I should be up at the ticket counter with everyone else, jockeying for another flight, another city, another time?

The people at the desk never lost their cool and were ever so pleasant; they gave us each $100 off our next flight.

By the time we finally got on a plane–our original plane from DesMoines never was repaired; they just found us a new one somehow– it was 12:30 pm.

Our pilot apologized and added this caveat: “Our flight time is regularly 4 hours, but we’re going to get you there in two hours. Enjoy your flight.” I think he was trying to confuse us about time zones and real air time — but we did get there around 2:30 with our baggage on the right plane.

I must say the takeoff over Midway Airport in Chicago is disconcerting. People’s houses are right there and very close.

I must say the landing over Oakland Airport is disconcerting. From the little window over the wing, all one sees is water coming up very fast. I was hoping for land to appear soon.

But in between taking off and landing, it was breathtaking.

Looking down at the real topographical map of this country, watching cloud shadows, brown squares and green circles dissected by curving roads and rivers, Rocky Mountains, high desert, green mountain lakes — Mr. H. C. said I was like a kid with my nose pressed against the window the whole time.

Cloud shadows
Brighten an empty
Desolate brown moonscape.
Look far and see
A sea of clouds
Inside out
Top down.
Below
Cloud shadows
Darken the geography of time.

Words scribbled on my phone tried to capture the awe I was feeling; photos taken with my phone were just as unsuccessful as the words.

Passengers mostly seemed unimpressed by the view out their windows. Unaware and unconcerned that we were hurtling through the clouds in a metal cylinder (albeit a brightly painted one), they were busy eating, napping, laughing, reading, laptopping…

Yes I know it was all new to me. And everyone else on the plane probably flies twice a month and finds it all boring. But it wasn’t. It was some of the most amazing landscape scenery I’ve ever seen.

It’s good to shake up those road trips every now and then.

And so I’m shaking up this road trip that I’ve been on for awhile. I’m taking a break from blogging in November to participate in NaNoWriMo. Don’t know how far I’ll get, but flying is definitely faster than driving…

140. Sign for the times…

July 13, 2015July 10, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 5 Comments

This week we will be in Kentucky,

working on other people’s houses

instead of our own,

with intermittent internet access.

Uncomfortable words to us modern

bloggers, googlers, emailers, texters, tweeters…

The words from this sign

Jump out at me.

Really, no other words are needed.

137. Critter Wars: they shoot groundhogs, don’t they?

June 21, 2015June 21, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 11 Comments

The long, gentle summer evenings of my childhood were sometimes pierced by the crack and zinging whine of a twenty-two rifle.

It was my grandfather, defending his country sweet corn patch from the groundhogs.

His main garden was in town behind his house, where he planted and tended and grew enough vegetables to feed us and his entire neighborhood.

But oh how he loved his sweet corn. And in the country below our house, there was plenty of room for as much sweet corn as he could plant. It seems we had corn on the cob every night for dinner in July and August.

Pa wasn’t a cussing man — he was a school teacher — except when it came to the groundhogs who ate his corn. For awhile when I was a kid I thought damgroundhog was one word.

I feel his pain.

He would sit in a yellow lawn chair in the back yard above his garden with a glass of sweet tea and his twenty-two across the aluminum arms of his chair. Waiting.

I’ve been suggesting to Mr. H. C. that he do the same with the deer. Of course, we aren’t allowed to actually shoot them, but he could aim above their heads… (Or he says shooting in front of them on the ground is the safer way). Perhaps they would think it was hunting season and disappear into the deep woods.

He didn’t seem to be interested, so I got out the yellow lawn chair and the twenty-two rifle for him yesterday. This evening, I saw him cleaning it, and there is now a clip sitting near the back door. I suppose I could try it, but I think I am such a bad shot, I could accidentally hit one when I’m aiming over their heads.

Can you be arrested for poaching the King’s deer on your own land?

Yes, you can.

waiting for a groundhog