For the first time since the pandemic began, I boarded a flight yesterday. Headed for Denver from Columbia, I was required to change planes in Dallas, Texas, where, unfortunately, a cluster of persistent thunderstorms closed the airport for almost three hours.
Finally able to depart, we headed northwest to Denver. In the wake of the storms, clear skies prevailed and I was treated to sweeping views of the Southern Plains and Western High Plains. Across Northern Texas and the Panhandle of Oklahoma, a series of rivers cut through the dry landscape, all flowing southeastward toward the Gulf of Mexico. At the Tristate of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Colorado, outcrops of volcanic basalt adorned the surface of the Raton Mesa; beyond this broad ridge the terrain dropped into the Arkansas River Valley of Southeastern Colorado where a mosaic of crop fields bordered the stream. Farther north, as the Front Range Peaks came into view, we flew above the pine-studded Palmer Divide and descended into DIA.
After more than a year on the ground, it was a pleasure to view our planet from a plane once again. While the varied ecosystems and their residents may lie far below, too distant to fully appreciate, their interconnection is especially evident from 30,000 feet.
