Trip to New York

Let me start with I love to travel. I love going to the airport because it's always the beginning of an adventure whether mine or someone elses. I love hanging out at the airport watching people come and go. I like imagining their lives, what they do, where they live, where they might be going. I like to see how people dress for traveling. Clearly, comfort is the word of the day for today's travelers.

I love looking out the window of the plane. Everything looks so small. God's eye view. The world is beautiful at 35,000 feet. As the sun sets there is a beautiful glow across the horizon. Lights begin to appear below. Again I find myself getting lost in the idea of so much humanity below.

People dying, babies being born, lovers fighting, students working to learn calculus, others watching TV.

People living lives of quiet desperation, others living out loud. One person just waiting to exhale as someone else is falling in love.

The world has a soundtrack as my Ipod plays along. Skipping songs that don't fit the mood and replaying others that speak to what I'm feeling as I look down on parts of the country so lit up and beautiful. The lights form snakes and figure 8's. Lines on wagon wheels, pods of lights and then other places mostly dark with small flickers of light here and there.

I love arriving in a new city. Every city has its own personality.

New Orleans is slow and sweet with an air nonchalance about it. Rome is filled with the self-satisfaction of people who are surrounded by the history of us all. Not so small and intimate as Florence, but not the big uber cosmopolitan Paris.

New York is sophisticated, full of energy and alive.

i love hotel rooms (nice hotel rooms) Clean tight sheets, fluffy comforter. Room service tea in the morning to wake me . . . (although most New York hotels don't have room service.) Mud masks at night because, after all, there will be new towels for the new day and I don't have to be so concerned with how I'm going to get those wash clothes cleaned! I love that (at least in America) I can crank the air up or down without fear of the electric bill.

I don't have a TV in my bedroom at home. So, I love the decadence of watching TV until sleep takes over.

And then if the trip has been timed right, I head home just as I become antsy to sleep in my own bed again. I pack my stuff and head back to the airport and then home.

With any luck when I leave NYC this trip, I'll return to Dallas with the weather being just perfect reminding me again of one of the things I most love about Dallas, the weather.

So, it is 11:30pm. I am making sure that I get my post for today in. If you read the Twitter on the left, you can get practically a moment to moment update of the first 3 hours in New York.

Time for a bath and then bed.