Dallas, Texas

by Gretchen

    From time to time I do see clouds out of my cockpit window, but nothing like this.  We rode in an EMB 170 - not the largest of planes but exciting none the less.  It has been nearly 13 years since I had flown in a commercial airliner and I was strangely nervous.  I fly at least a hundred hours a year in ultralights, excuse me "sport planes," and I was still nervous to get on that jet plane.  Yet, I just couldn't pass up a free trip to Dallas, one place I had never visited.  We left on Saturday morning, 9/17/05, and was to come back the next Friday.  Mickey had training, elevator stuff, starting on Tuesday.  Until then, we ran around Dallas seeing the sights.  I never did find a cowboy though - do they really exist?  Our hotel was adjacent to DFW Airport and we had a great view.  Our 15 story hotel was around a mile from the end of one runway and they flew, it seemed, no more than a couple hundred feet over our heads.  The hotel pool was on top of the building so we were constantly looking at the underbelly of incoming aircraft wondering at times if they were too low - sort of made you cringe sometimes.

Breaking through clouds.        On our way up to 35,000.      View from Hotel window of two of many runways.               Waiting on DFW Train.