sonora2sonoma

Our return flight home from Paris began with a departure delayed by 2 ½ hours while a part was delivered that was essential to the function of the aircraft.

Finally departing at around 6:30 pm Paris time, we headed out toward England, thence over Northern Ireland and beyond. The prospect of remaining in seats designed to accommodate the most passengers possible within humane standards for 12 or so hours was daunting, made more so by the delayed departure, 1 ½ hours of which were seated within the aircraft. Two hundred and ninety six we were, all save those who could afford first class cramped in similarly cozy surroundings.

There was blue sky as we sailed above the French cloud cover that soon gave way to the endless gray of a twilight that endured for much of the flight. We chased the setting sun toward the west, the flight arcing far to the north as we progressed.

At some point, I was distracted from the in-flight movie, The Shape of Water, by a sudden impulse to raise the shade and look outside. Below I spied a glittering island of lights and angles that stood out like a beacon from the grey muddle in which it sat. Several other smaller outposts of light were visible on the periphery. I interrupted the movie to inspect the flight tracker which revealed we were just then flying over Iceland. This was exciting to us, as the original flight plan had indicated we were to cross several hundred miles to the south of the island; before a photo could be taken, it was gone!

A beautiful half-moon rose as we flew over Greenland!

The next landmark with visible cues was achieved as we passed over the west coast of Greenland, enabling the taking of a few barely satisfactory snapshots of glaciers, mountains and fjords. The same conditions prevailed as we reached the shores of North America, somewhere in the neighborhood of Labrador, only here we had gained enough time in our chase of the sun for the gray of twilight to begin to lighten into the afterglow of sunset.

Our pursuit of the sun continued as we progressed across our neighbor to the north, the latitudes climbing beneath our wings as we arced high beyond Whitehorse??

Somewhere over the Yukon, our course began to veer more southerly. We watched a striking sunset over the Pacific Ocean beyond the coast of British Columbia as we headed toward Vancouver! Beyond Seattle, time seemed to accelerate; before we knew it, we were nearing home!

Our reintroduction to the City by the Bay was balmy and wet, a pleasant contrast to the chilly weather we left behind in the City of Lights!

Lightning lit the hills east of town as we rounded the hill into our little valley home—a fitting end for an eye-opening and life-changing adventure!

October 3, 2018                                                                                             Petaluma, CA