OFF TO PARIS

I just got off the phone with Patty, and she was about to leave the house, taking the shuttle van to the Las Vegas airport. This morning is the start of her 3 week trip to France, that will include her brother Michael, and their friend Donald.

Today, Patty is flying to San Francisco, where she will spend the night with her brother, and tomorrow, the three of them will fly first to Houston, then on to Paris. That's way too many hours in an airplane for me, but my wife doesn't even hesitate when faced with a long, overseas flight. Last year, she and her son David visited Greece, and the year before, she and her brother flew to China. This fall, she and her buddy Nancy have tentative plans to fly to Hawaii, and stay in Nancy's condo for a couple of weeks.

If I had to sit in an airliner for more than about 3 hours, I know there would have to be some Valium on the menu, or, perhaps the unthinkable, a reversion to a 20 year absence of alcohol. It's not that I'm afraid to fly, I think it's cool when the planes take off and land. It's the middle part that drives me to distraction. After a few hours, in a seat designed for vertically challenged people, the claustrophobic syndrome starts to kick in, and I get what some people call "happy feet". Lets just say that I don't see any 5-10 hour flights in my future. Just flying to the east coast is a stretch for me. Fortunately, when that's necessary, it's usually broken up with a plane change somewhere in the middle of the country.

Today is a day off from work, and there's a very special event taking place here at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon today. I hope to have some pictures of this one of a kind occurrence on the blog tomorrow.