Frightful Flight

I hate flying. I HATE it with a burning fiery passion.

Because I live thousands of miles away from any of my family members, though, I guess I will have to get used to it.

Yesterday I was flying back to Las Vegas from New Hampshire. My flight to Atlanta was pretty uneventful, but my flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas was SCARY!

First of all, we left an hour late. That is never a good start. Then, when we got into the clouds, I saw a thunderstorm up ahead! It was really weird being eye-level with the lightning and watching it go down to the earth. I thought this was highly cool until I saw that the plane was heading straight for the thundercloud! I wanted to talk to the pilot:

"Um, excuse me sir...are you INSANE?! Why are we flying into THAT cloud?! There are plenty of fluffy white clouds to choose! Why don't we pick one of them?! Or fly OVER the storm cloud?! I don't think flying through it is really necessary..."

Apparently he thought it was necessary, though, because he came over the loud speaker and said, "Please buckle your seat belts - we are headed for a bit of turbulence." OF COURSE WE ARE - YOU CHOSE THE SCARY CLOUD! ARE YOU SUICIDAL?!? It was a bumpy and quite disconcerting ride flying through the storm. Lighting flashed all around the windows. I considered what would happen if the plane got struck by lightning, and then I decided that maybe I didn't want to consider that after all.

We miraculously made it through the storm, and then I saw something that I have never seen before while flying - another plane! It was up there in the air next to us, just like another car would drive next to you on the highway. I waved at it, and I wondered if the people could see me. Suddenly the plane changed from flying parallel to us and headed straight towards the side of my plane! Here is my approximate thought process:

"Hi little friend plane! It's so fun to be up here in the sky with you - we could do synchronized flying or something! Wait, are you turning? Why are you heading toward this plane? AHHHHH! It's going to fly into the side of our plane! Dear God, please take care of Rex and Elvis and Elsie since I am about to be killed by a crazed suicide bomber who is using his plane as a torpedo! AHHHH! I hope dying doesn't hurt too badly...oh wait, is he going in front of our plane? He is. Oops. I guess he's not going to kill us after all; he's just switching directions. Dear God, never mind. False alarm. I'm okay."

I thought the excitement would end after the suicide-bomber-turned-regular-pilot episode. I didn't. When we got to Las Vegas, the plane ALMOST landed. Almost. We were so low to the ground that I could distinguish and identify the different casinos (is that sad?). Suddenly the plane pulled up and flew right PAST Las Vegas. It kept flying right past the city and on to California. New thought process:

"Pilot? Sir? That was my stop...um, can I parachute out or something? Because I'm really trying to go home, and you just passed it. Why are we going to California? Are you high? Did you fall asleep? Did you get hit by lightning? Did you have a heart attack? OH MY GOSH WHAT IF THE PILOT IS DEAD AND WE JUST KEEP FLYING AND FLYING?!?! We are flying over mountains now...definitely not in Nevada anymore...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Oh wait, I think we're turning around. Or possibly crashing. No, I'm pretty sure we're turning around. WHOO HOO! I can see Vegas in the distance!"

He finally flew back to Vegas and actually landed the plane. As we were waiting for our gate, the pilot came over the loudspeaker and said, "Heh heh...sorry about that, guys. It got kinda crazy so I couldn't keep you in the loop. There was a wind issue so we couldn't land, and then air traffic control told us to fly around for a while and then try landing again from the west. So that's what we did."

You know, if it weren't for the free pretzels I would be really disappointed in that flight!