Back on US Soil

After many hours on the plane and in the airport and five security checks later (even though they were concerned about my shoes on the US side and my empty nalgene in Tokyo, neither of them found my glass thermos that had broken. To my chagrin I discovered it in Denver)I was back on US soil. While Emily lamented being back (I told her soon she would be in Canada anyway), I celebrated!

The plane rides were comfortable enough, although I did notice than since the last time I was on a plane at Christmas, they had become much more detailed in what one should do in the event of an emergency exit--they went into great detail on how the plane wings could be used as rafts but certain parts of the plane wings could only be used if you were instructed by the flight attendant to use them (the possibilities of the flight attendant finding me in a crash seemed slim), all the extra instruction made me wonder if they really were planning on using them and if they really did believe that if we went down these measures were going to save us. At Christmas when I sat by the emergency exit they seemed satisfied that I could just open the 45 pound door.

In Seattle, I sadly said goodbye to my traveling buddy, my appendage for the last month. I just had three plane rides left before arriving in Bozeman and then having a 1.5 hour drive to G town. In SF I watched a mother leaf through a magazine with her daughter pointing out the various beauty products she needed. Her daughter who looked very young to me, said she didn't need to wear make up. Her mother ignored this and moved on to which sweaters she was interested in and I tried to ignore them but it was hard since the mother said a 170 dollar sweater was a great price and would look fabulous on this girl. The girl again expressed disinterest. I felt so happy to live in Gardiner and be at least a bit removed from the superficial world of products. I thought how sad it was that women have enough other sources telling them they need beauty products that they certainly don't need their mother doing so. In Tokyo and Seattle I couldn't wait to get home and shower and put something besides quick-dry clothing and tennis shoes on but I suddenly felt proud to be in my unshowered, unfashionable, and uncombed state.

In Denver I found a seat that had the arm chairs removed and took a nap. I set my watch but slept through it and nearly missed getting on the last flight out (over booked of course as the earlier flights had been canceled) to Bozeman (I took a tylenol PM to put myself to sleep). I prefer not to talk to the people sitting next to me on the plane but on this ride I got lucky with an interesting seat mate. The man had just returned from visiting Israel with his family. His wife is Bahi and needs to make a pilgrimage once in her lifetime. She wanted to take the kids and he didn't want her to go by herself.

We immediately hit it off as he was originally from Wisconsin but now living in Livingston. We waxed on about Wisconsin and how much we missed it. Anyone who knows me very well at all knows how I love to romanticize Wisconsin, my homeland (although Yellowstone has now wormed its way into my heart) and I love talking about the deciduous forest, fall color change and mostly WATER. Then I discovered that we had another thing in common, neither of us like flying. Since flying was required, I had quit worrying about terrorist sitting by emergency exits and pulling the doors open, bringing the plane down (really silly). Now with this guy I could see how funny all these worries were. The pilot told us that we were the last flight out and so needed to wait for a party with a family emergency and then we would need to de-ice the plane again AND they would have to go through the FDA seat belt, emergency evac stuff again. Some time passed as he told me about how wonderful the international flights were (it was his first time out of the country and he liked the free drinks, warm handi-wipes, and meals). The flight attendant merrily bubbled out the FDA requirements again and then the engines started to fire up. We moved towards the run way. We both looked nervously at our icy wings that we had a good view of from our seats. He wondered if we should ask the flight attendant about deicing and finally said he was going to say a prayer and put it in someone elses hands besides his own. He commented that when they tell you they need to deice but don't do it, it's worrisome. I agreed. Finally, much to our relief, we did actually stop to do the deicing. He commented that he wished he could do the deicing but it looked like they had done a good job. Finally we were cruising down the run way. He chomped on his gum, saying, "Come on, get this plane in the air, when are we going to get off the ground?" Once off the ground, he questioned "Do you think it's really loud? Can you hear that noise?" These are all the things I usually listen for but for some reason it just seemed funny so I tried to be reassuring and say, "I think these small planes are really loud."

Although we both really enjoyed our visits to foreign countries, we commiserated in probably a non PC fashion on our experiences in foreign countries and remarked on how happy we were to be back in our country. On the landing, he fretted over how quickly we were going down, the quieting engine and how long it took for us to hit the run way. It was a really smooth landing for a little plane. I barely felt us hit the run way (although this might have had more to do with the amount of tylenol PM I took than the skill of the pilot). He shared with me that he confessed to his son, but wasn't going to tell his wife that he was going to kiss the ground once we landed in Bozeman. It made me laugh to think that in accordance with the country song, although I doubt he knew the lyrics to the song as his music taste wasn't country (he liked Pink Floyd), he was going to "kiss the ground when the plane finally landed". I did not kiss the ground when I got to Bozeman but I was thankful to not hear honking, be drinking water out of the faucet that came from the sewage stream, have people respect my hula hoop space and be breathing smoke free air amongst many other things.