Commuting

In Sedona there is a small airport on the top of a plateau. It looks like a large rocky aircraft carrier. I drove up the hill and at the T junction at the top, was confronted by a sign offering about ten companies to the left. There were fewer to the right; I turned right. I parked and walked into the small terminal building and immediately knew how to choose which company to use. On his own playing a game on his PC was the Benny Hill look-a-like who was receptionist, chief executive, pilot and presumably everything else of his company. He couldn’t hide his excitement at the fact that once we’d gone out to look over his powered glider, I had said I’d like to take a trip.

The machine had two seats, side by side. Once inside we drove off to one end of the runway, abruptly he summoned full power; there was a lot of noise and moments later, still travelling quite slowly, we left the ground. After ten or so minutes he turned the engine off and so it was much easier to communicate; he told me that he lived a half hour flight away. On a typical day, he got up, stepped out of the house where his plane was parked, flew to Sedona, played computer games and flew people like me about and then flew home. Here was a man who was happy in his work and had given up trying to look otherwise.

With the engine off, we soared about the canyons sometimes skirting across the rims, frightening a little group of dear, sometimes plunging into a deep orange chasm as though on a massive, silent big dipper. He showed me ruins of American Indian cave dwellings and I remember seeing a very deep hole that he explained had one day recently appeared in the landscape without warning.

I glanced across at him a few times; he was grinning from ear to ear as was I. On one occasion we both looked at each other simultaneously and there was a slightly awkward moment before we quickly looked away and pointed out some landmark to each other.

After about a half hour, he radioed the airport and made an arrangement to land. We arced round gracefully so that the runway was stretched out in front of us. A few moments later we landed, the whisper of the wind shattered by the noise of the plane hitting the ground like a box of toys.