I'm Heading Out

Tomorrow I leave for Kentucky. This is an extravagant trip, as I'm treating myself to a flight out of Flagstaff rather than a flight out of Phoenix. Flagstaff's airport utilizes these tiny prop planes, and the tickets for one of the flights to Phoenix or Denver, the only two cities the airport serves, are astronomical. Personally, I think they should give a discount for the terror that comes from being in such an old, tiny plane at a very low altitude. That, and sometimes these giant gusts of wind come from the mountains at the top of town and slam into the plane. It goes beyond turbulence; it's like a giant trying to bat you out of the sky.

Thing #172 I will not miss about living here is being 150 miles from a "real" airport. In Chicago, where we're moving in Spring, not only will the airport be "real", it will be international. I may never have to fly out of LAX to go abroad again, hallelujah. And there will be oodles of ways to get to the airport, none of this driving three hours to get there crap. It may not sound like much, but if you add it all up you'll see what I mean. Say you have a 6:30 AM flight, because the red-eyes are cheaper. You need to be there by 5:00 AM at least in order to check in, etc. Since the drive takes about two hours and thirty minutes, and you want to add a half hour to accommodate traffic mishaps, you have to leave the house at 2:00 AM. At that point there's no reason to sleep, so the entire event ends up resulting in an all-nighter. Throw in the cost of gas for the drive down and the way up and you've got yourself a major inconvenience.

But back to the reason for this extravagant trip. It's been sunny here with no clouds for over three weeks. I woke up yesterday, saw that blue sky, and had myself a good meltdown. I added up the last three weeks, the month I spent over the summer in a very sunny Tibet, the long, hot summer with almost no monsoon rains, and came to the conclusion that I deserve some clouds. That, and it will be nice to see the family.

I'm debating what to bring on the trip. I'm currently working on the Counterpane Pullover from the Fall 2007 Interweave Knits.

I'm leaning towards that, as it's a Christmas present for my momma and I want to finish it up so I can get on to other handmade presents. The only problem is that if I bring it she might see it, as I'll be visiting with her on this trip.

So I might bring these:

Nice, little fiddly knitting for the plane. And they won't ruin any surprises.