Above the Earth

It's Halloween. I'm on my third flight to Zurich, Switzerland. What an expanse of beautiful land and water we've soared over! The fall blaze of orange, red, and chestnut leaves encircling the Duluth airport. That cantankerous Lake Superior, whose winds and moods you can guess from wave patterns below. Still reddish from the Nemadji River Basin muds brought down in weeks of rain.

We flew to Minneapolis and then east through the night, crossing six time zones. Now we're headed east again from Amsterdam. I'm hoping to see the Alps, even Mont Blanc, where I hiked two summers ago. It's partly cloud...