Almost Home

Almost a thousand miles today. I got out of the cockpit and after more than eight hours of flying today and thought, I need to sit down!  So after a pee break, and put fuel in the wing tanks, I climbed back in the cockpit. I woke up just outside of Houston this morning. Part of me wanted to see if I could make it all the way home with some awesome tailwinds created by a high and a low boundary. But I stopped to see some friends (Davey and Fox!) and almost saw some more (Peske and Ben!) and now find myself in a quiet airport in PA. 

Although I would have liked to have crossed the one thousand nautical mile mark today, I'd rather be right here.  I'm not quite ready to be home, not quite ready to land and immediately unpack.  I woke up at 0500 this morning and while I feel that I'm exhausted I also feel the life in me.  They do a strange thing in PA where they lock the airports, even the pilots out after a certain time. (All other states seem to trust pilots.) And while I can't go inside right now, I'm perfectly content sitting in my vessel, my ship, my craft.  We clean up, debrief the day, record the facts of the day. A sweet dinner of apples, arugula, triscuits and cheese.  

I sat watching the last light disappear and felt like I was on a boat in a peaceful anchorage. So happy to sit and look at the sky, look at the dials, contemplate flying more than 900 miles.  Free miles from the wind push no me along. After many months of many hours of computer time, it is so nice to have the eyes open and to be looking across miles and miles. One mile straight down and tens of miles in all directions. 

Life is good.  I love being a pilot, I love my ship. I love that pilots don't usually sleep in their planes or have skateboard in their planes.  If I never get to be an astronaut in space, at least I'm getting to be one on planet Earth.