The world is beautiful! I’ve been known to gripe a bit at having to spend an entire day waiting for connecting flights. It seems like you’re bound to visit every airport in the country before arriving at the one you’re trying to get to. However, my complaints are ill founded as this experience always turns out to be a blessing in disguise so long as I have a window seat.

I’ve sat for hours with my neck craned to one side, my breath catching every time the landscape changes. The pale, orderly patchwork geometry of the fields of the Midwest is interrupted by wide dark twisting fingers of waterways surrounded by unkempt hills. These become grander and more frequent until, with a great trumpeting fanfare in my ears, the mountains come into view, their topmost peaks still dusted with snow. 

Every so often the topography shifts, melding into winding rivers that cut deep canyons into the Earth. Sometimes the speckled black green of trees gives way to crimson sand or orange stone. Even if you’re not a geography buff it’s impossible to not be fascinated when viewing it from such a height. You can’t help but wonder how all this came to exist and be humbled to be part of it. 

We live in a fantastic time where you can communicate with someone on the other side of the world in seconds with the touch of a button or you can take to the sky and see that person in hours. Even though a two hour trip often stretches into an ordeal three times that length with the occasional plane change and layover I just can’t find it in me to be unhappy about it. The Earth is stunning and I get to see it.