What's Above Us?

One of the great advantages of life in Point Roberts is the proximity of the Vancouver Airport, a scant 30-minute drive from the border. Most simply, it means the ROTUS, as well as the rest of the world, is easily available to us. It's a beautiful airport, but since they collect $10 from every passenger that takes a flight out of the airport, I think of the airport and all its beauty as in some small way belonging to me, and of course to all of us who fly out of YVR and pay our $10 fees. I like to think that my many $10 bills were used to pay for some part of the waterfall near the entry to customs as you arrive in Vancouver. You, on the other hand, may have paid for part of the Jade Boat in the main departure hall. Another good choice.

Although neither Point Roberts nor Roberts Creek is directly under the flight path of the Vancouver airport, one is aware of the great number of planes taking off each day (less aware of landings, unless you're nearer yet to the airport). There is one flight in particular, thought, that puzzles me. I hear it from both places, lying in my bed, somehow awakened around 1:30-2:00 a.m. The sound of a plane flying at first puzzles me because it's late and the planes have stopped flying by that time, I think. But it is a plane, a heavy plane as the controllers say. It's going somewhere I can't quite figure out. But here, today, and also here in a somewhat different version, comes the answer...if only I study it long enough, I'm bound to be able to spot that very late-night plane and to see at last where it's going.