finding airplanes

Dylan,

Late Sunday morning you were easily persuaded to give up playing with the sprinkler in the back yard when I suggested we go looking for airplanes. I'd been wanting to do this for a while.

We drove up the road to the airport and parked on the edge of a dusty, weed-populated open space large enough for several football fields. It's the last thing besides the freeway that all incoming planes fly over before easing onto the runway. A plane had come in for a landing just as we got off the freeway but when we parked and got out of the car it was all quiet. You of course noticed right away a very large hydraulic excavator (or "big digger") parked on the far side of the field, nearest the freeway. There was also a Loader Backhoe off in another direction. We checked out the diggers for a bit until the lights that had emerged in the distance became the roar of an airplane probably 300 feet over our heads.

For a while, no sooner had one plane landed than the lights of the next were already a shining daylight star on the horizon. Every few minutes a plane would overtake our position and slide over the fencing to the tarmac. And as soon as each plane touched down you asked insistently "more airplane, more airplane, more airplane?" I'd tell you to look and to listen and I'd try to direct your attention to the horizon, but -- probably because I forget to bring your hat -- you just didn't seem satisfied until the sound of the jet engines was washing over us.

We probably didn't see ten planes, but it felt like it.

When finally a plane had landed and there was no distant light, we walked to the car and said good-bye to the airplanes and the diggers.

It was just past noon and I casually suggested to you as you climbed into your carseat that it would be okay to go to sleep if you were tired. You were out before we even got back to the freeway, probably inside of 15 seconds.

Dad