Fourth of July
Lane flies coast to coast and rekindles a torrid love affair... with America.
By Lane Wallace
October 2001
At first,
I was decidedly bummed at the timing. I'd agreed to fly my Cheetah
to Peterborough, Canada, east of Toronto, to give a talk there on
the 7th of July. It seemed a good excuse to take the Cheetah on
an adventure and see parts of the country, and even parts of a different
country, that I'd never seen before. But it would be a long journey
in my slow little plane. And as I got ready to leave, I realized
the timing meant that while other Americans would be spending the
July 4th holiday with family and friends, enjoying barbecues and
fireworks, I would be spending it all alone, flying between unfamiliar
towns somewhere in between the coasts. I sighed as I packed the
airplane, resigned to what seemed to be part of the price I pay
for the life I lead.
A
week later, I wouldn't have traded places with anyone. For in
the course of our journey, my Cheetah and I end up sharing an
entire week-long celebration of America that tops any Fourth of
July I've ever known.
We
start by taking a last, lingering look at the jagged coastline
of the Pacific Northwest, which is still a wild place covered
in redwood forests and spray-splashed rock cliffs, before heading
out over the lush and orderly vineyards of the Napa Valley. Turning
north, we pass over the green rice fields of the northern San
Joaquin Valley before leaving the safety of the flatland behind
for the Sierra Mountains. I wonder again, passing the snow-covered
slopes of Mount Shasta, why the most beautiful places to fly also
seem to be the ones that afford no good place to land in an emergency.
Would it be too easy, otherwise? To have a gift of such wonder
and beauty without any price to give it value? This trade-off
between gift and price is an equation I will weigh many times
in my way across the continent.
Reminders
of the impressive force of nature and the universe are all around
me in the dramatic landscape of the northwest. I pass by the cavernous
hollow of Crater Lake at 9,500 feet, which is filled with water
even at that high level. And while the lava fields east of Boise,
Idaho, are not what I would call beautiful, they arrest my attention
with their raw power; a reminder of the boiling substances that
lie beneath the seeming calm of the Earth's surface. Local pilots
tell me that you can survive a landing into trees better than
on the inhabitable surface of the lava fields. Looking at the
hostile, desolate landscape beneath me, I believe them.
The
next morning, I work my way through the roughest of the mountains
in western Montana. I follow the highway through one pass, but
then leave the road behind to follow the kinder landscape along
a piece of Lewis and Clark's trail. I look down on the river valley
below me, trying to imagine those early explorers forging their
way through these mountains for the first time. Exploring this
landscape myself for the first time, I feel an affinity with their
spirit, although I have many more tools and landmarks to help
me on my journey. And yet, almost 200 years later, I, too, am
following and trusting the guidance of the Native American woman
who led Lewis and Clark safely to the Northwest.
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