When we wanted to, we could push the button on the back of the seat in front of us and watch our flight’s progress. As we took off from Dulles, the sun was still up. But as time went on, the map showed the edge of night growing closer as the arc of our trajectory passed eastwards. Sometime after we left The Maritimes behind, it became pointless to look out the window, because all was black.
To my delight I found that I was able to sleep (although the fair and industrious Trudy had no such success). An hour here and there mixed in with a little reading. The time passed mercifully quickly, something helped no doubt by the fact that we had actually slept the night before departure this time unlike the last time eleven years ago.
At some point, I pushed my nose against the window again. Black. Wait. No. There was a rosy glow on the horizon.
I pushed the button on the seat and looked at our trajectory. Our path was mostly thru night now, and the edge of day was not far off. I think I dozed off with my face against the window. When I awoke, the pink glow was slightly brighter. And there were clouds silhouetted against the red. And Venus was shining brilliantly in the pre-dawn sky, racing the sun which hadn’t yet come up.
As daylight grew, I saw us pass over the northwestern coast of France. I watched what must have been the Loire Valley, the lights of villages and towns shining thru a broken cloud deck, connected together by sinuous winding dots of lights that must have been roads winding thru hills and up what must have been valleys.
Daylight spread further, and I saw mountains with peaks sticking up above a deck of clouds that had now hidden everything else. And to the north and east I saw a large peak and recognized its shape. I gasped and pulled Trudy as close to the window as I could.
“It’s Mont Blanc!” I said.
She smiled.
But alas, it was not. I know that now, because as I tried to find an image of it online to share with you in lieu of the sight I saw, I find to my shame that the shape I saw was in fact not Mont Blanc. It was the Matterhorn!
The Matterhorn, sticking up above the clouds early on a Saturday morning as we flew over southeastern France. The Matterhorn, which from the ground looks like this:
source: Zermatt and the Matterhorn
There it was. Tiny from 35,000 feet. Unmistakable. The Matterhorn not Mont Blanc. It’s just that I don’t know my mountains.