Thursday, March 3, 2011

North Pole ahead!


Every day seems too short. The sun seems to set so quickly. The next day is always just around the corner. This seems to be an eternal truth for everybody. I actually had a day where this wasn't the case.

4:30 PM, Pacific Standard Time: board Iceland Air SEA -> KEF. Final destination: Paris, FR.

It's summer in Seattle which can either mean amazing, golden sunshine, or moist drizzly rain. This day was was like most others: a combination of both. The skies had mostly cleared though and I was taking off, out of the Puget Sound area and heading north...far north.

Missing most of the peaks on the west coast, I do get to spy one familiar sight before I head towards a world I've never been before. Rising up in the distance not long after take off, I see Mt. Baker. It is nearly at the Canada / US boarder and still covered in the winter's snow. The golden sunshine that Seattle sometime does get is falling across the mountain. The clouds are hovering just below the summit. It is the perfect sight to say goodbye to as I head out on my European adventure.


Being summertime, sunset happens very late, and the farther north you go, the later it is. When you fly out in the afternoon and pass through the Arctic Circle, that same sunset seems to chase you. Or maybe you're chasing it. It's too hard to tell. Either way, the flight around the Earth is long and the sunlight continually streams through the towering, monumental cloud formations of the Arctic.

Time seems to stop, but actually, you've just managed to skip through time a bit. That sunset that you never want to arrive never does. The sunrise that starts your day, it never comes. You get to continue on. It feels like you've gotten to steal time from somewhere, but it's just travel. It's one more reason that adventures are magical.

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