Flying is Life

My friend doesn't like golf because he says it's too much like life with its ups-and-downs, good days and bad, but you keep coming back. Well flying is even more like life. No matter how much you plan (and you need to do so when flying), things just always tend to work out differently than when you planned it. The weather may change your plans, or your plane may change your plans (something that's just not right, or just doesn't feel right). But whenever I finish a flight, my heart leaps. I am sure that it is partly due to "cheating death once more", and it is always nice to have the the number of landings match the number of takeoffs, but it is much much more than that. Lifting off from a runway and leaving the surly bonds of earth sets your soul into high gear. There's really nothing that feels better than making a climbing turn to head on course. Retracting the flaps and then retracting the gear, and feeling that slight extra boost of climbing power. The earth seems to become even more beautiful as you climb. Have you ever noticed how beautiful a freshly plowed field looks from the sky? Or vineyard in bloom? Or an apple orchard in winter with those shadows? Even ugly things on the ground are magnificent from the air. We flew over aeration ponds from a local town water treatment plant, and my gosh, it was beautiful with the pattern of fountains and ripples on the water. I don't know why everything looks beautiful from the air, but it does. At lower altitudes, nothing is boring. Even a desert casts colorful shadows, and dry riverbeds create mosaics in the desert sand. Occasionally we glimpse a fault link in the earth's crust. Most recently we flew over the Carrizo Plain about 50 miles southeast of Paso Robles, and we could see the San Andreas fault. There were mountains to the east with the ridgeline parallel to the fault line. We could clearly see the fault. But the amazing site was that of creek beds running down from the mountains, and when they reached the fault line, they were shifted 90-degrees north, and then 90-degrees back on course as the earth had moved in a line and taken the creeks with it. We hit a bump in the air and it reminded us that we are flying and not simply enjoying the view. Flying is life. Life is what happens while you are making other plans. Flying is the same. It is demanding and rewarding, and unforgiving at times.