... nor, in actuality, is this imagery confined to the music world or the silver screen ... "road trip" has come to signify a journey away from home-base for any length of time, be it hours, days, weeks or more, regardless of mode of transportion ... as recovering Arizona congresswoman Gabby Gifford's husband, Mark Kelly, prepares for his historic penultimate Space Shuttle mission I'm not certain if astronauts qualify as yet, but the term is inclusive of cross-country walkers, distance cyclists and frequent flyers ...
... sometimes a "road trip" can take you to the next town over but when planes are involved that could just as easily be the next country or hemisphere ...the latest Ackeelover Chronicles excursion spanned the longitude between antipodean Australia and the capital of Canada with touchdowns en-route, tailor made for eventual blog fodder if the internal clock ever readjusts ...
... during these travels I came upon a little bit o'trivia claiming that the average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour numbers 61,000 ... same time I saw headlines regarding an air-traffic control gaffe causing the diversion of a plane carrying Michelle Obama and Jill Biden ... it seems the FLOTUS flight was too close for comfort to a military cargo plane approaching Andrews airforce base ... after a contemplative pause to take in the potential horror of that averted disaster I weighed it all against my own aborted landing experience ... juuust before the too-late point ... when the pilot saw another plane still occupying our San Juan runway ...
... not all road trips conclude safely at the original point of departure, ask Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Lynyrd Skynrd or Aaliyah ... with nineteen take-offs and nineteen landings crammed into a five-week period, it's impossible not to feel sometimes like you're playing the odds when you take the "high road", but, make it back in one piece with experience enhanced and memories intact, you can feel like a sweepstake winner ...
... sometimes a "road trip" can take you to the next town over but when planes are involved that could just as easily be the next country or hemisphere ...the latest Ackeelover Chronicles excursion spanned the longitude between antipodean Australia and the capital of Canada with touchdowns en-route, tailor made for eventual blog fodder if the internal clock ever readjusts ...
... exciting? ... yes, but air travel sure ain't what it used to be ... pat-downs, x-ray technologies, sniffer dogs, laptop swabs, fingerprints and infra-red "eye-D" retinal scans all contribute to travel safety but have the cumulative effect of dragging out a "road trip" ... promisingly, new TSA regulations propose reform for passengers, who, having paid to check-in a single suitcase, find no recompense even when that very valise vanishes after weather SNAFU's a connection at Chi-Town's mazy O'Hare ...
... during these travels I came upon a little bit o'trivia claiming that the average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour numbers 61,000 ... same time I saw headlines regarding an air-traffic control gaffe causing the diversion of a plane carrying Michelle Obama and Jill Biden ... it seems the FLOTUS flight was too close for comfort to a military cargo plane approaching Andrews airforce base ... after a contemplative pause to take in the potential horror of that averted disaster I weighed it all against my own aborted landing experience ... juuust before the too-late point ... when the pilot saw another plane still occupying our San Juan runway ...
... on the return itinerary, the second pass by this almost-a-state (can you imagine if Barack Obama was born here?) was more direct ... flying over Puerto Rico (or in fairness, anywhere) is quicker, slicker and safer than stopping there ...
... not all road trips conclude safely at the original point of departure, ask Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Lynyrd Skynrd or Aaliyah ... with nineteen take-offs and nineteen landings crammed into a five-week period, it's impossible not to feel sometimes like you're playing the odds when you take the "high road", but, make it back in one piece with experience enhanced and memories intact, you can feel like a sweepstake winner ...
Like so many things in life I have always been of the opinion that sometimes blissful ignorance is definitely key to survival. We do roll the dice so to speak every time we get on a plane, drive a car or eat any food prepared by someone other than ourselves... The world is just a constantly shifting set of variables, but with roughly 6.9billion people on the planet and if you take into account the estimated percentages of accidents and incidents over a 12 month - 10 year period I think it just shows how human nature can be to worry about the unknown, regardless of how unlikely the situation may be.
ReplyDeleteRyan
P.S. It was great to meet you in Melbourne Peter, I hope you had a safe trip home and are enjoying the Caribbean Sunshine.
Amen to both Ryan and Peter. My father was a commercial pilot…'nuff said.
ReplyDeleteGilder