Day 48: HERE I AM

Day Forty-Eight: HERE I AM

7/30/11:

Joe—fantastic amigo that he is—got up at four-thirty in the morning to drive me to the Phoenix Airport, but ended up instead as sole witness to my phone battle with Delta. After years of living with a dad who constantly checked and re-checked his flight departure times, I too rang up Delta only to learn that my plane had been delayed by two hours and that I was going to miss my connection in Minneapolis and that in order to get back to Iowa, I might have to be rerouted through (wait for it) Detroit.

I was absolutely tickled.

Sitting on the back of Joe’s truck in the ranger district parking lot, I went through Delta representatives like Q went through bird books: quickly and somewhat agog. There was a bit of finagling (definitely some whining) and an hour later, I’d gotten things decently settled. No connecting flight for this one. Nope, Dad was winning a “Father of the Year” award and driving to the Twin Cities. It was a debacle, but major crisis had been averted.

I took the helm of Joe’s truck, eager to work off some of my irritation. The drive to Phoenix was a true descent: barreling down highways, we lost elevation, gained heat, and met near disaster when I accidentally downshifted into reverse on the interstate. Obnoxious sporty cars whizzed on by as I drove at a more sane pace, determined to take in my last views of the Arizona landscape. Giant saguaros looking like cranky old men poked out of the dry ground as we passed out of forests and into the dry red desert.

At the airport, loaded down with my bags, I nearly fell over trying to give Joe one last hug. He’d warned me that he was bad at saying goodbyes, so it was short and sweet. Noah, Quentin, Joe and I had all exchanged addresses, promising to write. I expected exotic postcards with glossy pictures of beautiful things in the near future.

On the plane I kept looking down, saying my goodbyes to the summer, the KNF and Arizona.

From my backpack, with me through so many surveys, I pulled out my water-warped notebook and scrawled a single sentence: HERE I AM.

Photos: 1. & 2. Plane views