jumpingfish

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.

1.

Last time we did this, something like 11 years ago, we followed the advice of some seasoned travelers who recommended staying up all night before the flight so that we’d be so exhausted that we’d sleep on the plane and wake up ready for a new day when we touched down in Paris. It didn’t work. We stayed up the night before alright, but none of us slept on the flight, and by the end of our first day in Paris we had been awake for 36 hours straight. We were zombies for several days.

This time we just slept (somewhat) normally the night before. And the fair and industrious Trudy packed jet lag pills that we took every two hours while en route.

Trudy was unable to sleep. But I did a little. And in the event, we did pretty well on our first day in Rome, although we were mighty willing to lay ourselves down to sleep before 9:00pm.

2.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

“It’s 6 o’clock!” Trudy grumbled.

The cleaning staff was knocking on our door at an obscenely early hour. 

“We’re still in here,” I shouted (not having any Italian phrases for such an occasion).

We chuckled at their diligence, turned over and went back to sleep. Well, Trudy did. I lay there for a while and then got up to see what Rome looks like as the sun comes up.

I pulled back the first set of drapes. I pulled back the second set of drapes. I opened the double-paned windows. And then I pushed open the shutters.

3.

A hot breeze blew in.

The bright Mediterranean light made me squint. Cars and scooters beeped in the streets. People were walking quickly down the sidewalk. This was clearly not morning in Rome.

I looked at my phone.

“It’s not 6:00,” I mumbled. “It’s 12:30.”

“What!?” Trudy said, sitting up in bed.

“It’s 12:30. We slept thru the first half of our second day in Rome.”

Let’s just say that we didn’t use the jet lag pills on the return flight home.

This is nothing new, I suppose, it having been so silent around here of late. But… it’s going to be a bit silent around here for a while.

I don’t expect to lay my hands on a keyboard for a while, and that is a good thing. Nor the fair and industrious Trudy. We shall be on a journey, and if you are interested, you might find photographic breadcrumbs here. It starts tomorrow.

We rose early this morning. There was work to do in the yard, tomato plants to cut back, Hackberry trees to hack out, leaves to blow and rake. 

And then we went for breakfast tacos. But I found my attention drawn away from the bounty on the table, because…

1. Talking to Alan

I made the mistake, years ago, of telling Alan that I had explained to a roomful of fourth graders that it probably made sense that Pluto’s status as a planet was revoked. It made sense, I told them, because we now know that there are other bodies beyond Pluto, some larger than Pluto itself, orbiting the Sun in the dark, distant recesses of our solar system. I told them that Pluto is one of that vast group.

I said all this to Alan who was sitting across the dining room table from me. The words had barely left my mouth when his characteristic grin went grim. And his son who was also at the table almost jumped and with a startled look on his face turned to look at his father, waiting to see his reaction.

There was no particular reaction. Alan smiled (although as I recall it, his eyes had widened a bit), and he patiently said, “I’ll have to explain it to you sometime, Dave, when we have more time.”

2. Listening to Alan

Last Friday, Alan sat before the cameras, as he has been for a week, now. He and the New Horizons science team were talking to the press about the things they had learned that day from the most recent images from New Horizons.

They were all science in that press conference. Talking about methane ice and nitrogen ice and carbon monoxide ice. About flowing glaciers of nitrogen. About ice mountains and in-filled craters. About Sputnik Planum and Hillary Montes and Norway Montes. About Pluto’s atmosphere extending out 100 miles from the surface.

Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute link

And then there was a question directed to Alan that brought up that word, planet. Here is what he said.

You know, there’s been this controversy where astronomers and planetary scientists have largely been on different sides of it. I think that you and the public just like we on the science team can pretty well tell what we’re dealing with.

[At this point, for a brief moment, his eyes sparkled and his mouth betrayed a smile. And then he continued…]

It’s very hard not to call an object like this with this level of complexity, an atmosphere, with potentially an internal ocean, certainly with complicated seasonal cycles, and certainly a big complicated system of moons … uh … a planet.

I think I just got that explanation he promised.