You know the journey's a long one when the charts cost almost as much as the fuel. But great as the distance seemed when we conceived this trip on paper, from our new vantage point aloft it seems made of little more than the short cross-countries I make every week. How often on a one-hour flight have I turned to my passengers and said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could just keep on going?" Well, today I'm doing it, living the small boy's dream of following railroad tracks to the horizon.
After New Mexico we'll cross Texas and Oklahoma flatlands pocked by irrigation circles, then overfly verdant Ozark hills in Missouri. Next comes the Mississippi, a veritable flowing ocean compared to the meager trickles that pass for rivers here in Arizona. Astonishingly, that ribbon of water, which seems so logically to divide the country in half, won't appear until we're two-thirds of our way to the Atlantic.
From the Mississippi we'll travel as partners with the Ohio River over places where flatboats once docked, like Evansville and Louisville and Cincinnati. And then, just short of our destination will rise the deceptively curvaceous Appalachian Mountains, shrouded as always in jagged flying weather.
"But those mountains are so low, Dad," says my son, Austin, newly rated as a pilot and sneaking peeks at a chart near the bottom of the stack. "What are they...maybe three or four thousand feet tall? I just don't see how the weather could be so bad there." Having recently flown with him through the 14,000-foot jaws of the Rockies, I can understand his skepticism.
"They're like Mom," I say, "more petite than you or I, but a whole lot tougher." A groan emanates from our third pilot in the back seat. "You'd better be nice if you want lunch," says Jean. "Don't forget I have the cooler back here." Weak humor notwithstanding, Austin will have to personally experience the Appalachians to appreciate their very different character and the varied moods that pervade them.
Looking ahead through this crystal ball of a windshield, it's not so easy on such a long trip to anticipate cards held by the weather, which unbeknownst to us will demand hours of instrument flight and drive us by the skins of our teeth around thunderstorms all the way from Lexington to Richmond - barely granting our destination of Newport News. ("Those are the Appalachians, Austin!")
And although our route lies so clearly before me, even the most vivid imagination cannot predict the fun we'll have along the way, watching Colonial officers drill young spectators to fight for Virginia at Williamsburg, pondering glide distance to the shores of the massive Chesapeake Bay, sampling a game of cricket at Wilmington, Delaware, and dining Philadelphia-style before tracing cracks in the Liberty Bell and visiting the desk where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Until now Austin has known these places only through history books, and removed as they are from the Spanish and Native American roots of our own Southwest, he'll be surprised at the emotions budding even within a teenager upon visiting such historic sites.
Among other gems we cannot foresee is bucolic New Garden Airport in Pennsylvania, where gliders and classic airplanes hide from the present under an army of tall trees and one must fly back 50 years on downwind to land there. We'll marvel at the flight of ancient airplanes over the Hudson Valley, walk historic ramparts in Quebec City, and ogle Oshkosh aerobatics amid the dairylands where I first became a pilot - everywhere greeted by the words, "You flew all the way from Arizona?"
But that's all in the future. For now, as we cross Lake Roosevelt barely 40 miles after leaving home, only endless red rock lies beyond our windshield, eventually to be replaced by green grass and then blue waters, all warmed by the accompaniment of my family. Sure, there's the paper target of Tucumcari, but that's just a dart tossed randomly along a freewheelin' line sketched across a dozen maps. (We'll dine in Oklahoma City, it turns out, and sleep in Springfield, Missouri.) With cares dissolving behind us, the way east is clear, and the horizon our only destination.
Hardest of all for me to imagine as we commence our journey this hot but beautiful morning is how, in a mere two weeks, we will actually return from this trip to the horizon, three tired souls touching down in our Flying Carpet, permeated with wonder from twice traversing diverse landscapes of earth and sky across an entire continent.
Funny how each individual leg of such a trip seems no more difficult than a short flight from home, yet after so many hours of watching the land change chameleon-like beneath our wings, we are forever seasoned as adventurers.
Related Articles
