Once again today, I experienced the magic of air travel. I'm on the road quite a bit, and I still am amazed at the speed and comfort that most of us can go zipping about the country and even the world. My first stop after departing Marinette, WI was the airport in Green Bay, WI. Fifty miles in less than an hour. Out on the road during the pilgrimage, that fifty miles will be almost two days or pretty tough work.
From there I took a quick forty minute hop south along the shoreline of Lake Michigan to O'Hare International Airport on the outskirts of Chicago, IL.
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International Arrival Hall - O'Hare International Airport
Chicago, IL |
An airport is an exciting (and expensive) milieu of a wide variety of cultures, languages, thoughts, and opinions. On one of those layovers you might have, I encourage you to get out of the gate area and take a walk just to see what there is to see. It's fantastic by any objective measure. On my stop in Chicago I heard Chinese, Russian, Spanish, German, and of course English on my ramble through the gates. I had Tex-Mex, Italian, Chinese, and American food including burgers and a good old fashioned hot dog offered to me for purchase. They were all about $8-$15, but that's not the point...the point is those things were available. We left Chicago and crossed the southern tip of Lake Michigan again.
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| Leaving Chicago and the Western Shore of Lake Michigan Heading East |
A friend had posted something on Facebook that I was contemplating as we made our climb out of the Windy City. She noted something along the lines of not being able to bear the weight of the bad news that was happening "out there." My thoughts turned to where I was at the time. Snugly, if not a little precariously, perched in the aluminum tube headed to twenty five thousand feet at four hundred miles an hour. I had a bag of spiced snacks, a Diet Coke, and an tolerable book. Since it was a small plane, I had both a window and an aisle seat.
First I have to acknowledge that there are horrific things happening to other human beings all the time. We should all collectively resist or more basic urges and try to knock that shit off because if we can manage that, what's going on "out there" is really very special. We, like everyone before us, are living in fantastical times. Let's face it...we're hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour protected from the vacuum of space and searing solar radiation by about thirty miles of gas. It's mostly a nitrogen blanket, but has just the right level of oxygen and other gasses so all life on this planet thrives, competes, conflicts, and cooperates.
What a gift! What a miracle life truly is to those who take the time to turn off their horror screens and really take a moment to look.
I arrived home safely, and on the way over the Severn to grab some Chinese take-out for the roommates, an "Independence Day" style thunderstorm rolled out of the mountains, across the river, and through the Chesapeake Bay.
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| Ominism "Independence Day" Style Descends Over the Severn River and the United States Naval Academy |
What's going on out there? I don't know, but I can't help but conclude that it's pretty spectacular. Tomorrow I'm going to tone out the concentrated horror that comes out of my television on a far too regular basis. I've got a couple of lawns to mow and some walking to do. There might even be a matinee movie in the mix later in the afternoon. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I'm confident it will be great.
