I am generally known to be a level-headed, not-usually-hyper,
rational person. But sometimes, only sometimes, I do things that befit this
description. I do stupid things that befit my age, and maturity. I realize that
I just wrote the concluding paragraph without even starting the post.
I was on my way to Seattle during the winter holidays. I was
flying on Christmas eve, hoping to reach Seattle just in time for Christmas. When
I was checking in at the airport and the machine at the kiosk asked me if I would
like to board the next flight in return for a $200 travel voucher, I should
have taken the hint and said yes. I did not. I was in a hurry to reach my most favorite
place in the world. Which I did not.
There were weather related issues, and by the time I reached Denver, I had missed my connecting flight to Seattle. I could neither reach
Seattle on Christmas eve, nor could get the $200 travel voucher. I spent the
night at a hotel in Denver, and had to be up by 4 am to take the 5:20 am shuttle
to be on time for the 6:00 am flight to Seattle. In the fear that I would
oversleep and miss my flight, I mostly did not sleep at all. By the time the
alarm went off, I had already showered, packed again, and was ready for the
airport.
A few years ago, this lifestyle and not sleeping at night
suited me fine. But I can see that I am reaching that age where I need my full
8 hours of sleep at night, need my bed, and cannot do red eye flights anymore. It
spoils my entire next day, when all I do is sleep. So I boarded the flight to
Seattle, texting my friend that I need some Ghoom 3 (Dhoom 3 had released that
weekend, and ghoom is Bengali means sleep). Sometime during the flight,
probably after I had my complimentary apple juice without ice (I always have
that in flight), I put down my head on the serving tray and dozed off. I slept
on and off, being very uncomfortable in that cramped space, and somehow managed
to have a dream that I was visiting Yellowstone National Park.
Suddenly, I woke up with a jolt and looked outside the
window. To my amazement, I saw that we were flying over the Yellowstone
National Park. It was quite possible, since the route from Denver to Seattle goes
through that area. Now how did I know that this is Yellowstone National Park? Because
I saw the Old Faithful geyser erupting below. I have been to that national park
once, 4 years ago, and loved it. How lucky one can be if one gets to see the
bird’s-eye-view of such a world famous place, for free. I have traveled over
Arizona, hoping to see the Grand Canyon from the airplane, but nothing I saw
looked like the majestic Grand Canyon. And here, I could see the Old Faithful
geyser right below my nose.
Ecstatic, and still a little groggy from sleep, I took out my
camera quickly, changed lenses, and took some pictures. Barely able to contain
my excitement, I told this to the neighboring two girls sitting by me. “Hey
look, we are flying over the Old faithful geyser in Yellowstone”, I beamed. To my
confusion, they looked initially surprised, and even tried craning their neck
to see the view, but lost interest in the few seconds. I mean, how could one
not be excited about the view? Maybe they have been there enough number of
times to not be excited anymore? Maybe they had never been there, and did not
know what they were missing? “Crazy people”, I said in my head, and looked
outside, taking a few more pictures of the geyser that was slowing fading to my
right now. But something about their reaction bothered me. Something in general
bothered me. Why was the area around the geyser flat? I tried to remember what
it looked like 4 years ago. I am pretty sure that I had seen many tall and
rugged mountains during that trip. Something just did not seem right.
I kept wondering for the next fifteen-twenty minutes, when I saw
the Cascade chain of mountains appear. Ten minutes later, I had landed in
Seattle.
Given how quickly Seattle arrived after I saw the Old
Faithful geyser, and given how flat it was around the geyser, the only rational
explanation I can think of is this. Brace yourself, for I may be right, and it
will shock you. We were flying above the Pullman area of eastern Washington,
and what I mistook to be the world famous geyser, was a tall factory chimney
which was billowing white smoke. We were hundreds of miles away from
Yellowstone, both geographically, and figuratively. That explains why we landed
so fast. That explained the first confused, and then irritated look those women
gave me (as if they were saying to themselves, are we idiots?). And that
explains how age is catching up with me, and how a groggy, half asleep state of
mind makes my imagination go crazy. This is so embarrassing that sharing it in
the anonymity of this blog makes me feel only marginally less stupid. I cannot
imagine sharing this with my friends, who know me for my passion for travel.
For the rest of the plane trip, which was not a lot
thankfully, I did not make eye contact with my fellow passengers. And you know
what? Someone out there is laughing really hard with her friends, recounting
how a sleepy woman mistook a factory chimney to be the Old Faithful geyser.
sunshine
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