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.
