Bernadine “Bernie” Goodrich – Mentor

JWise Photo of the Day

Bernie Goodrich and Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

This photo of Bernadine “Bernie” Goodrich with Caroline Wise was taken back in May of 2019. Sadly, Bernie passed away today. This wonderful lady is the person who taught Caroline how to warp a loom. Back in early 2010, the three of us met up at Bernie’s home in Mesa where Bernie gave Caroline hands-on lessons in how to dress her loom for weaving. Over the years, Caroline would see her at monthly guild meetings and I’d often run into Bernie either while dropping off or picking up Caroline and a few times at events focused on the fiber arts. How fortunate we humans are to, on occasion, know wonderful people such as Bernie who leave us with treasured memories.

Fly Out

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Sunrise at Skyharbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona

Three-thirty in the morning is an awfully early time of day to wake up, but that’s what was required for getting to the airport by 5:00. Our first stop on this journey is Chicago, where we’ll be connecting to our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, Germany, landing at 7:20 tomorrow morning.

Flying over America to Chicago, Illinois

We were on board early with 20 minutes to go before departure. Paying for upgrades such as priority boarding and premium economy is proving to be worth their value regarding their stress relief factor. With everyone accounted for who’d bought tickets for this flight, we were able to depart 15 minutes early. I think this is new to me; I can’t remember such a thing ever happening before.

Flying over America to Chicago, Illinois

Hey, wait a second; I thought this trip was canceled. Yeah, well, Lufthansa only wanted to refund $150 of each ticket or have us rebook. Rebooking for early next year wasn’t possible as we have a vacation already booked for Chiapas, Mexico, in March. Booking later this year with looming new travel restrictions due to COVID might not even be possible, so if Caroline was going to see her parents before 2022, it was going to have to happen now.

Flying over America to Chicago, Illinois

So here we are at 35,000 feet over the middle of America in the 8th row of a flight that is far from full with no seat neighbor. Now, the trick is to stay awake so we can sleep on our flight over the Atlantic.

Flying over America to Chicago, Illinois

Since we’ll be landing in the heart of Europe early Wednesday morning, which is our 10:20 p.m. Tuesday night in Phoenix, Arizona, we’ll be inclined not to want to hit the ground running, but that’s exactly what we’ll need to do. Not only that, we’ll have to keep up that momentum for at least 14 hours so we can go to sleep late enough in the hopes that we can start getting over jet lag as soon as possible. So, if all goes well, we’ll grab a solid 5 hours of sleep on our next flight.

Flying over America to Chicago, Illinois

I must have fallen asleep for a moment or two as I’ve got nothing to say about this photo of farmland somewhere, not that falling asleep should have any impact on what I might say. What I should say is that by the time I’m writing this, we’re at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, and I’m feeling a bit worn, using a fuzzy brain to try and say something.

Cannabis Amnesty Box O'hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois

With marijuana legal for recreational use in Illinois, we surmise that these boxes are used by people who forgot they have a pocket full of weed and, before they get in trouble flying into a place where it’s illegal, this is their opportunity to get rid of it.

Caroline Wise at O'hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois

This is the before photo prior to Caroline enjoying her Aperol spritz as we sat down to some mediocre lunch at the airport. For a place known for its cuisine, terminal 1 is a sorry representation of the city outside the airport. As I finish this first installment of the post for our flight out of Arizona and the United States, we have less than an hour before we board our flight, and Caroline is looking just a bit tired. Maybe my two micro-naps on the way to Chicago gave me an advantage? Anyway, the next image for this post will arrive later, but for now, this is what’s going on for the two of us.

Chicago, Illinois

We took off from Chicago nearly a half-hour late, but that seems to be fitting with the O’Hare airport as it’s one of America’s busiest, and while the airport food was on the disappointing side, the view of the city on the lake was spectacular.

Caroline Wise on the way to Germany

We were able to snag a great deal on an upgrade to business class on our flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. Caroline pointed out how this was her first time having champagne on a flight, and while she once flew first class from Phoenix to New York City for work, this was her first time in business class to Europe.

Business class meal on Lufthansa flight

With a flight barely seven hours long, the crew got busy as soon as we were in the air to get dinner service going. Instead of serving the three courses separately, as was my experience on the way from Frankfurt to Denver back in June, appetizer, main course, and dessert were all brought out simultaneously, which was great for me but not ideal for Caroline, who had opted for ice cream as her sweet.

I don’t think it was 15 minutes after eating that our seats were laid down nearly flat, and we were on our way to sleep. While fitful, we were able to sleep off and on for about 4 hours before the aircrew was prepping breakfast. Not thirty minutes later, we were landing in the city where Caroline was born, Frankfurt, Germany. As for the flight in business class, all flying should be in this comfort.

America Ends In Black & White

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

El Camino Family Restaurant in Socorro, New Mexico

The venerable coffee shop and diner, an institution on the great American road trip, is faltering. Here is where our day should have begun, but with food prices rising, pay demands of those toiling in the service industry, and the migration of previously independent people moving back home due to dire economic consequences brought on by a pandemic, restaurants have little choice but to shut down or scale back operations, just as this institution in Socorro, New Mexico, had to do.

I wonder how much doubt was alive and well in those businesses that cater to the travel industry as the world entered the summer, not knowing which direction COVID-19 was going to take. Sure, many of us rushed to get vaccinated as soon as we could earlier in the year, but an equal number are swearing off ever getting a vaccination. So, with uncertainty about how things would progress, businesses appeared to be reluctant to staff up, especially knowing that there would be no global travelers descending on America, and this was compounded by shortages of parts and supplies that hamper car rental agencies trying to ramp up their fleets, which left everyone scratching their heads about what to do.

What everyone did was raise prices. Hotels and motels out here are expensive, car rentals are pricey, and feeding a family of four at even cheap restaurants is just shy of or even more than $100 for dinner. Caroline and I paid over $50 for breakfast on the California Coast back in May. As the green is being drained away by the higher cost of living, diminished opportunity, and a population moving in reverse intellectually, the colorful sparkle that has been so attractive about life in America is starting to appear tarnished.

Turbine blade in Magdalena, New Mexico

Wind power is quietly being deployed across our country. Elon Musk has battled scorn and disbelief from those angry about the move from gasoline-powered cars to self-drive electric vehicles, but now all manufacturers are on board, validating his initiatives. Drought and fire are scarring the land and polluting the air, but still, a large segment of our population wants to deny that we are having any impact on the environment. Coal is still a critical element in our energy supply, though we are well aware of how it fouls water and air.

I want to see red, but I’m afraid that the opaque nature of our collective intelligence is blocking us from engaging in meaningful discussions that would be required to foster an embrace of change. The color drains from hope.

Very Large Array in Datil, New Mexico

We try to communicate with aliens and land all manner of craft on Mars, but we can’t get through the backward attitudes buried deep in thick skulls. Many are entrenched in the fight against the perceived existential threat that they might have to change and learn anew how and where to operate in our world. We risk becoming aliens to modernity as we resist launching ourselves into new horizons. Searching the heavens with telescopes will never bring blue-sky clarity to a population mired in a universe of denial. As knowledge is passed through society, those entrenched in fear and conspiracy become negative refraction materials, suppressing humanity’s move toward greater enlightenment.

Very Large Array in Datil, New Mexico

Fences keep animals in an enclosed area, but they also keep out trespassers. I wonder when knowledge became a dangerous beast that required barriers to keep the peace. Fences, while at times transparent, also arrive in the form of walls that stop others from looking in. It is my belief that we are building metaphoric walls between those who embrace the future and those who abhor the idea of any contact with things that might alter their intellectual underpinnings, such as they are.

Pies in Pie Town, New Mexico

There are spectrums of light, sound, thoughts, and flavors. When these things are refracted, they produce various phenomena that delight human senses. Take sunlight and water vapor; we see its effect in the sky when rainbows appear. Flavors, when combined, become something greater than the constituent parts. Thoughts become inventions and art, while sound can be formed into the music that makes us dance. When the vibrancy of potential in these spectra is diminished or even squashed between two poles, we are left with a damaged system of noise; dreams are turned black and white.

I will not choose between cherry or poop pie; that’s not a choice. I want a menu that features peach, coconut cream, apple, blackberry, and even pumpkin; I want to choose from a diversity of flavors. That diversity is a fact of life, but it doesn’t only govern our food, music, TV, and racial makeup; we must also adopt a diversity of thought. Right now, we are in a cultural war with only poop and rainbow pie on the menu; well, I’m ready for a heaping slice of rainbow pie while I still have a choice. The people eating a daily diet of Carlson Tucker’s secret poop pie recipe should consider the old saying, “You are what you eat.”

To try and exist on a monotrophic diet both physically or intellectually will ultimately damage your health,  meaning you cannot eat carrots three times a day every day for years without consequences. And yet, this is what many Americans do regarding their intake of echo-chamber information. But why are so many returning again and again to the same thing? Fear. They are afraid that if they challenge their monolithic belief system, the world around them will collapse. Therefore they come back to the trough of affirmation that convinces them that only the poop pie will nourish them while everyone else nursing at the teat of the rainbow unicorn is being poisoned and will soon metamorphize into the spawn of demons, communists, pedophiles, or other detritus that they consider dangerous to their way of life.

The point here is that we need a spectrum of options that is not a bucket load of the same old, same old. Our world needs colorful alternatives. If things are only black or white, there are no choices for those who want to exist somewhere in the middle.

Near Hannagan Meadow on the Coronado Scenic Byway in Eastern Arizona

When culture and society are built like a house of cards, time and weather will easily wear down the structure, making the shelter quickly uninhabitable. America is in the process of breaking out the windows, punching holes into the roof and walls, and tossing out the conveniences of comfort that are the underpinnings of our country. It’s as though the outside is fighting to be inside, and the inside wants outside, or maybe they just want to eliminate differences by subordinating one to the other so all of it is the same.

Near Hannagan Meadow on the Coronado Scenic Byway in Eastern Arizona

But when we walk together, live together, and recognize our similarities, a different world opens where harmony might emerge. Out of harmony, we create new things, such as when we take up partners and produce offspring. Similarly, when harmony arises in a population, we create a culture that brings society forward and ultimately leads to an increase in the standard of living and access to more tools for even greater expression. Through creative expression and invention, we stand apart from the animals. Without it, we become the animals.

Near Hannagan Meadow on the Coronado Scenic Byway in Eastern Arizona

We step over barriers when we are at our best as we recognize that one side is much like the other. But if that barrier is a line demarking an ideological divide, then we bring weapons to defend this imaginary border, be they verbal or physical. The resultant stalemate or total conflagration might allow one side to hold their ground and not let the other take influence over their sacred beliefs and ways of living, but both sides ultimately lose out. Our fear of that onslaught that would accompany change has us needing to reinforce the dividing wall or fence that keeps us separate. This backward thinking is the fodder of intellectual regression and war.

Coronado Scenic Byway in Eastern Arizona

The space between earth and clouds is vast, with a near-infinite number of hues that paint the landscape. Every minute of every day, life is coming and going, the clouds stream by, we grow older, and nothing is quite the same. It is this dynamic shifting of the view and our place in it that enchants so many of us humans into delight when we are afforded the luxury of watching big nature execute its script of constant change. And yet, we recoil at the thought of our own change, maybe because we are ultimately afraid of our own death, but that’s childish as this is at the heart of the contract that we must live with.

Jessica Aldridge on the Coronado Scenic Byway in Eastern Arizona

Right there in the middle between sky and ground, here and there, left and right, storm and sun, home and open road, experience is waiting for us to toss off inertia and put ourselves into the mix. We cannot find what we don’t know without moving into the unknown. If you’ve never been down the highway that takes you elsewhere, then how will you discover what might be right in front of you?

Copper mine in Morenci, Arizona

Down in the pit, deep below the surface, under the mountain, this is where we bury our demons, our poisons, our dead. In that darkness, there are no colors or light other than the eternal bleakness of being rendered blind. This is where the unilluminated minds of the voluntarily ignorant choose to exist, though they are convinced that all is bright and crystal clear to them and, often, only them. Throughout history, we have always looked uncomfortably at the wounds and scars that are opened in our efforts to make progress. Progress is only found in the march forward into certain uncertainty. You cannot escape the darkness, cowering under the rock you’ve always known.

Big Horn Sheep in Clifton, Arizona

Even if you need to stand alone, get out there and see what the potentially hostile terrain has to offer. There is nearly always something that can nourish you, even in the middle of the desert. Along the way, you might find that who you are traveling with is not really who you think they are, and when that person is you, you cannot simply deny things; you must keep going and find fertile ground. Don’t stop moving. Continue your march forward; you’ll likely ascend mountains if you just remain in motion.

La Paloma Mexican Restaurant in Solomon, Arizona

At the end of the road, oh yeah, there is no end of the road; there’s just one more short pause on the way forward. But, when you sit down again to your diet of carrots with your closed mind and your fear of encountering what you don’t know yet, just remember that a world without the color of the rainbow is a world stuck between black and white, and you are only experiencing a tiny fraction of what the full spectrum of life has to offer.

Traveling Again

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

East of Superior, Arizona

After that last blog entry, my longest ever at 11,833 words, I needed a break from writing critical things. So, I turned to work on old blog entries. I did some backfill of photos for various, long-neglected trips from 2004, 2007, and 2011. Along the way, Caroline and I fixed a date for the two of us to visit Germany together, and those tickets are now reserved. Meanwhile, with all the travels of May and June, including the Big Sur Coast and Germany, I’d forgotten about a trip coming up early next year that will take us to Chiapas and Oaxaca in Mexico. the first part of that adventure is all about the fiber arts of Chiapas. A conversation with our travel companions opened up online that brought my attention back to this Mexican adventure. I suppose we should somehow give thought to it though I can’t really think how I’ll prepare any better.

While steeped in the old blog entries from 2011, I focused on writing about a particular visit to Oregon that had us visit the “Spruce Goose” airplane from Howard Hughes. The more I looked at the images from that 5-day vacation, the more I longed for a return to Oregon, and so I booked us two nights at Carl G. Washburne State Park and a night at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park for later this year. Speaking of vacations, last December, I’d mentioned that Caroline and I were going to raft the Selway River in Idaho around the 4th of July this year with friends; well my need to be in Germany derailed that for us.

Off the Salt River on Highway 60 north of Globe, Arizona

In between all of that, but still connected to the old blog entries, this time from a 2004 trip, I was filling in some details and old photos of my daughter Jessica and my first-ever road trip together and called her, inviting her to read the updates. Soon, we were talking about how it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen each other, and as she recently got her COVID vaccinations, I suggested we should consider the idea of a new road trip and found she was ready for some traveling. Well, then I found a room available at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, and our trip started taking shape. We leave today, just she and I.

On this trip, while on the road, I’m going to invest myself in taking a more studied approach towards photography. Typically, I just point and shoot, grabbing enough to end up with a couple of dozen good photos that I can share here, but I don’t focus on taking great images. Well, that’s changing for this 11-day journey as I’m bringing five lenses, a tripod, and better attention to focus, aperture, and low ISO.

Near Salt River Canyon in Arizona

About my writing, some of the days on the road will be easier to write about than others due to the different natural areas we’ll be exploring. I’ve intentionally loaded up on some days that I hope will present challenges to my use of descriptive language.

Rounding out the time shared with Jessica will be my need to dip into a synthesizer I’ll be taking along. For that, I recently migrated some modules into a portable case that allows me to take the essentials to help with beta-testing a particular module a friend is creating. With our trip to Germany coming up fast, I need to get in as much time as possible, digging into the way things work in the firmware to help make it as idiot-proof as possible [John, the proper word is user-friendly – Caroline].

Heading towards St. Johns, Arizona

Stacked up, this looks like a lot of things to do and not enough time in a day to do them all, and if I fail, I’ll fall behind in such a way with the photography, writing, and testing that I won’t be able to catch up in a meaningful enough way. So, I am writing this to myself as a mantra to not falter in my resolve to do everything I need to do. In order to extract every ounce of value from the investment in time, energy, and money, this must offer an incredibly experiential contribution to my memories, but isn’t that always the case for how I approach life?

North of St. Johns, Arizona

In full disclosure, all the above was written a couple of days ago, but I never took a photo to match it to, and so it wasn’t published. So, I’m assembling this post tonight after arriving in Cortez, Colorado, after the first full day of traveling with Jessica. The photos above and below were all shot during our drive when we had good weather. We had a lot of gray and our fair share of rain, but here we are out on the road.

Somewhere in New Mexico

This will be the longest trip my daughter and I take together as I believe the previous lengthiest was maybe five days maximum. I’m pensive as we dig into this 3,000-mile-long haul as there’s a lot of driving, and she’s a sporty, stay-active kind of person, which causes me a bit of concern.

Somewhere in New Mexico

But out we’ll go and see what the road has to deliver as we bring ourselves into the unknown territory of sharing so much time together.

Day 35 – The Exit

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

My wake-up call from Arizona arrived an hour early, which is keeping with my 5-week tradition of not getting enough sleep. Showered and packed before Klaus offered me breakfast of Brötchen and Marmelade, and I was ready to tackle some photo prep duties to ensure I’d have plenty of material to write about during my 16 hours of traveling. By 10:00 a.m. I’m on my short walk to Zeilweg to jump on the train to Hauptwache with a connection to Hauptbahnhof before a third train takes me to the Flughafen.

I presented my negative results of the COVID test I took on Saturday, my boarding pass and passport, and found myself in the second group to board after parents traveling with children and those in need of assistance. This is my last photograph of Frankfurt before we return for a briefer 21-day stay near the middle of September. With only 7 hours 41 minutes of daylight during the deepest winter, I’d like to get us back into Europe before we have to endure 16 hour nights.

I suppose I should describe my place in business class that is likely ruining my future international flying experiences. Of course, the seat is amazing, and without a flight neighbor, I believe I have space typically occupied by three people. The seat allows me to lay flat though I was more comfortable with the seat about 75% of the way down for my nap. Our first meal came on pretty quickly after takeoff and was our main meal of the flight. I opted for the burrata, tomato, arugula, and pesto for my appetizer and a braised steak with tagliatelle and creamed spinach for the main course. The dessert was a cherry and chocolate gelato. By the time I get to my third cup of coffee, another steward is asking those of us who are awake if we’d like a Mini Magnum bar. Diabetes be damned, I’m flying business!

Seeing I have the menu here at my seat, I’ll also share that prior to landing, we’ll have a final meal. While I’ll be opting for the vegetable ravioli on rape blossom stew with melted tomatoes and hazelnut stock, the smoked tuna with avocado, mango, papaya, and edamame, on sushi rice with sriracha mayo is tempting. Dessert for that meal is fixed with no alternatives, so we’ll all have a chia pudding with fresh fruit. Oh, I forgot to mention that the first round of drinks on offer came with a porcelain ramekin of roasted almonds.

Some of the above is out of sequence because it fits up there, and well, it just works better for me. This photo is of us still not at altitude as we were still heading north somewhere over Germany in a place I can’t quite figure out.

Farms and villages were separated by stands of forests as far as the eye could see.

We are as high as we’ll get on this flight, and I don’t mean as much as the two priests in the center two seats must be after three glasses of wine. Yes, I was keeping track, and both of them have had to be reminded multiple times to pull their masks up. I suppose God will absolve them of their sins.

It’s been three hours since we left Frankfurt, so it’s 4:40 in the afternoon. In Denver, where we’re headed, it is 7:40 in the morning. Here on the plane, the majority of people are asleep. Did Lufthansa put Ambien in everyone else’s meal? As for me? I’m busy writing about yesterday and my trip to Worms and Karlsruhe. In another tab, I have the makings of an entry with 34 photos so far, one for each day I was in Germany, which was set up in case I ran out of things to write in this entry and yesterday. This doesn’t seem very likely.

My mask has to be on at all times that I’m not eating or drinking, and the warm, humid breath is making me tired, or the collective nap is emanating sleep vibes, making me drowsy. My hope is that I can beat jetlag if I stay awake because when I get home after 9:00 p.m., I’ll be so tired I’ll sleep until morning.

An hour later my eyes have closed a few times with fingers that have grown heavy. I snap back awake from my micro-nap to see a “j” duplicated 50 times across the screen or a “k” streaming along. Mine is the only window open, and the blinding white tops of diffuse clouds are doing nothing to snap my pineal into shape or choke off the melatonin that’s whispering sweet nothings to my eyelids. I want to give in, but also don’t want to nap for more than 30 minutes. Those around me have been in their state of slumber for at least two hours already. I cannot suffer their fate.

But suffer, I did. My 30-minute nap worked perfectly, so I was going to add 30 minutes, but 15 of those into that segment, one of the air-stewards reached over me and closed my shade with the change in light and sound, taking me out of my sweet fever dream on the sunny hot side of the plane. I do feel refreshed and ready to take on this weird place between time zones.

I just realized that this flying arrangement is allowing me to drink more than on any previous flight as it’s not a painful hassle to squeeze myself out of a seat where the person in front of me knows I’m getting out as I have to pull on the seat and bump into it as I attempt to extract myself through the seven-inch slice of space we are afforded in economy that’s been filled with 44 inches of fat. I’m liberated to pee to my heart’s content, my bladder’s too.

I just checked on my connecting flight in Denver and wonder who booked this. A four-hour layover? Really? Why didn’t I look to another carrier that had an earlier flight? That sounds like such a great idea I’m looking right now if I can get a ticket for a reasonable price this late in the day. Jeez, everywhere else on the internet works fine. Try going to a competitor airline, and it’s taking forever to render pages. Well, $450 nixes that idea.

I hear activity in the kitchen. We better get this last meal out of the way because I’m kind of enjoying this feeling that we are eating non-stop, and who knows what snack might follow before landing. Speaking of landing, we are about 3.5 hours away from doing just that in Denver where I can start my 4-hour hanging out in a terminal and will probably pass out.

Damn it. It was probably the two ice creams and three coffees, but I’m feeling that telltale sense of pressure that could indicate I might have to consider the unthinkable: a bowel movement at 35,000 feet. This can’t happen; this has never happened. I won’t let it happen. What deep PTSD-inflicted trauma happened in my early Catholic upbringing that brought shame to this very natural near-daily act of evacuating the shit sock? Ah, remember that reference from my book about the Grand Canyon? Yeah, you probably don’t, as why would you?

So what club did I just join exactly? Really, John, you didn’t take a selfie in there? I’ve got to say that a business class toilet isn’t in demand as much as those in economy and it’s maintained a lot better, even after 7 hours in flight.

I’m done. We’ve not eaten yet, I pooped, no crying kids in business class, but I’m done. I’m ready to land, ready to get to Phoenix, ready to hug Caroline. Hmm, I’ll probably have to shower soon after hugging her as after a month away eating a different diet and using different soaps, I’m going to smell strange.

Something to snack on or eat needs to happen; I’m bored. The computer is open, but my brain is in a funk. I have all these creative tools at my disposal, but I get stuck staring at the blank space ahead of the last word I wrote, and compulsively, I feel I have to keep pounding the keys. Too bad I’m not a poet, I could use the empty bottle of water and vast legroom to write something about the contrast if there even was something to be found using those things as subject matter.

The young skinny priest just started his fourth glass of vino. There must be something better to do on this plane than keeping score of a couple of drunken men from the clergy.

I guess I was wrong about kitchen sounds, as it’s an hour later, and the stewards are nowhere to be seen. Skinny priest is going to hell, he’s without a mask, and I’m not going to forgive him his sins for this shit. I’m putting in a smote order after I’m done typing this.

Maybe I should have gotten a bit more sleep as I’m not due home for another 9 hours; that’s 6:30 in the morning back in Germany, which would mean I’ve gotten 45 minutes of sleep in the intervening 25 hours of being in motion. Sleeping at the Denver airport doesn’t sound all that smart, but then again, I could have Caroline call and wake me so I don’t miss my connecting flight. This seems like a small price to pay for the opportunity to lay down so many words from so high up in the sky. It’s not like I spend every day some five miles over the earth writing, though admittedly, I can’t say that anything I’ve noted here has any exceptional insight that would allow me to claim influence from being aloft.

We’ve been flying over the Canadian Shield, also known as the Laurentian Plateau, for quite some time. I never fail to be amazed by this vast, flat gargantuan stretch of land with a million small bodies of water spotting the landscape. There are nearly a dozen fires burning away down on what I’d imagine is tundra, probably from lightning strikes, as there are no roads anywhere out here.

Looking up information about the shield, I see that I’m looking down on the North American Craton known as Laurentia. This body of land once had the tallest mountains on earth, but glaciers and erosion have worn this land nearly flat, and it’s old, coming in at about 3.96 billion years of age.

I have no complaints about the meal served to me; it was one of the best, if not the best, meal I’ve had on a plane. It was better than my previous meal of the day. So, is business class worth the extra expense? The toilet, meals, and service are certainly pluses. The table and all the space I could possibly want in front of me and for elbows within the seat have allowed me to write comfortably all day. Maybe if I’d slept more, I could better appreciate the seats that allow passengers to lay down, heck I even have my CPAP with me, I could have had seriously proper sleep. My butt still hurts, and I want to walk around, but that’s a small price considering the convenience of getting on first and not competing for overhead bin space along with the aforementioned benefits, so I’d be inclined to say, yes, it’s worth it. Will I do it again? Depends on the price differential when Caroline and I return to Europe in about ten weeks.

I never tire of looking down on our earth from up here. I can’t understand how everyone else in this section watched videos for the previous 8.5 hours or slept when those with window seats had these amazing live views of their planet. I may never get to space, but the view from up here isn’t bad, either. I’m astonished that this is my life: one day, I’m riding a bike 80km along the world’s largest mudflat, taking in an art exhibit on another, and the next, I’m in the sky, connected to the world of knowledge, dining on hot food at 35,000 feet.

We are somewhere over South Dakota, and the clouds over North America always look so much more defined and billowy than what I see over the skies of Europe. The land out my window is still flat, but I anticipate seeing mountains at any time. I remain on the lookout.

We’ve reached Colorado and are approaching Denver.

Well, here I am in Denver with 90 minutes to go before I board the next plane to Arizona. Customs was a breeze, and my $14 brisket sandwich wasn’t horrible. I hope it lasts me the rest of the night. I’m sleepy beyond belief and I’m certain I’ll pass out on my way home. Somehow, I’m pretty chilled out; it’s often happened that I feel assaulted by America when I hit the airport; maybe the extra room in business class alleviated a good amount of stress? Seems like I’m done writing for the day, time to exit this non-stop blogging.