Don't even think about it!

In early April my wife and I traveled to Florida to visit my parents.  The travel east is tough because of the 3 hour time difference from west to east coast.  We left Seattle around 0915 and arrived in Tampa, FL just after 10 p.m. EDT and by the time we drove to Bradenton, where my folks live, it was nearly mid-night.  Now that is only 9 p.m. PDT but we were tired and were able to go to bed and sleep right away.

We spent a pleasant week visiting family, taking in the Ringling Art Museum in Sarasota on Monday, Busch Gardens on Wednesday.  We returned to Seattle on Easter Sunday.  All in all a successful trip!

What was amazing even in the age of wonders was the flying.  The planes hold nearly 200 people (all sitting in neat rows in a long metal tube) with all their luggage.  You are easily 6 or 7 miles high, traveling at a speed in excess of 500 mph able to look out a window not much bigger than the computer screen you are looking at right now but the most amazing thing to me is this: most people don't even think about it!  They want to know when the drink cart will start.  They want to know if the Captain has turned off the seat-belt sign so they can find the bathroom.  Some are reading. Some are watching their personal CD players or computers. For most of these people the plane is just a time machine: in about 4 or 5 hours they will be 2,000 miles away from where they started.  In fact, the trip from home to the airport was more perilous than this incredible journey.

Another incredible thing is the complete disregard for the time of day.  These aircraft have no need to see where they are going.  They follow coordinates and computers guide them to the proper spots.  It gets dark and it matters not.  Are there thunderclouds ahead?  No matter they just turn and go around them sometimes with a light show for the amazed passengers.  They fly in complete darkness and you watch the lighted cities slide by underneath the plane (by the way - where does all that electricty come from?) and then before too long the plane is floating gently toward earth and you see the ground rushing by and realize that you really are going quite fast.  Then the wheels bump and engines roar and the brakes are applied and once again you are a huge car with wings.

Why does everyone immediately stand up even if they are in the back of the plane?
Why do they load the front of the plane first and then finally the back?
Why do babies that are flying always sit by me?

Don't even think about it.