The View from Above

On a recent flight, I had been focusing on my smartphone, with the window closed as there had been heavy cloud cover since leaving Seattle, and simply surviving a medium-length flight. Long gone are the days of flights being a chance to unwind, as my work phone is set to connect to in-flight wi-fi, and hours in the air are hours where email traffic are often at their peak. I had not been paying much other attention, until the pilot came on the PA and advised that we were passing over Bozeman…

Window shade up. Clouds all but gone. Vast parts of Montana, and soon Wyoming, in full and beautiful view.

Some areas remind me of a family trip, when Yellowstone and the Arrowhead Mountains were on the menu. Some areas of a later trip, through Idaho and Montana, when the previous truck lost it’s AC…in July…while towing the camper. Rough traveling, but isn’t that part of what makes enduring memories?

I find myself transfixed when presented with these views. I stare down at the ribbons of silver and white, and realize that I am trying, with no reasonable chance of success, to make out details that could imply if an area has better or worse fishable waters than somewhere else. True, one can see if a river is running more towards silty chocolate milk, but unless the trip back, at a much lower altitude, is planned for the next week or two, that has a fair shot of not being the case before it could make a difference.

I discovered some time ago that the wi-fi connected smartphone still shows it’s location in mapping apps, during a flight. Because of this, if I think I recognize a given area, or see something of interest, it is not a significant challenge to identify what I am actually passing over, on the map. It adds to the fun, to be sure, and occasionally feeds into planning for future excursions.

Ultimately, though, the greatest value of this exercise is that it is a chance, in the midst of hurtling through the sky, surrounded by my fellow travelers and a massive amount of technology, to more easily ramp up the imagination, wondering about how “that water” would feel to wade in, right at that moment, or if the bank of clouds rolling in will bring a cool breeze down “that canyon.” It is a chance to re-connect with nature…at least in one’s mind.

It is also, when one looks more out than down, a chance to remember just how much more there is out there to explore, experience, and create in new memories.

Tight lines…