Every few minutes, after the automated train arrives, the escalators heading down are thick with people in a moment of insulated transit. Moving alone and together through a world of our creation. In one batch of passengers, three in a line: a man in a blue tracksuit jacket, white earbuds dangling to an iPhone, which he keyed with two thumbs; a middle-aged woman in custodial shirt with a mid-distance stare; and, just a step behind, a businessman in gray suit and soft green tie, checking his nails as he stood on the stair. I joined the procession, having just arrived in Dallas from a four-hour flight. The woman next to me had been excited to visit her grandkids, who live in a 6,500-square-foot house. She makes the trip from Boston four times a year. I was carrying on to Amarillo, so as she headed to baggage claim I had shuffled through the sliding doors of the train for a ride from Terminal C to Terminal B. Ever moving without any effort. // Behind me in New Hampshire, single-digit temperatures would soon brace the maple trees outside my home. Up ahead I would walk across prairie fields beneath turbines taller than 25 story buildings, the blades turning in the late winter wind. The energy they capture gets fed into a power line and shipped back toward Dallas, where the shuttling never stops. // On my second flight, suspended one mile above the earth and bound for Amarillo, I was numb to dimensions of time and place. I shifted in my seat. A father and son sat behind me. The jet descended through clouds and banked above Palo Duro Canyon, making its final approach. The land beneath was soon flat pasture and strip mall, a blur of brown earth and neon bright. The plane glided low past the big box hotels and the Bell Helicopter assembly plant. The wings bobbed as the wheels waited to touch pavement. The boy, his face pressed tight against the plastic window for the view, did not turn his head, but said to his father, or himself, "some toy airplanes can fly higher than this."#travel #writing #instaessay #texas #energy #fuelwalk #unh808 A post shared by Tom Haines (@twhaines) on Mar 12, 2017 at 4:13pm PDT
Every few minutes, after the automated train arrives, the escalators heading down are thick with people in a moment of insulated transit. Moving alone and together through a world of our creation. In one batch of passengers, three in a line: a man in a blue tracksuit jacket, white earbuds dangling to an iPhone, which he keyed with two thumbs; a middle-aged woman in custodial shirt with a mid-distance stare; and, just a step behind, a businessman in gray suit and soft green tie, checking his nails as he stood on the stair. I joined the procession, having just arrived in Dallas from a four-hour flight. The woman next to me had been excited to visit her grandkids, who live in a 6,500-square-foot house. She makes the trip from Boston four times a year. I was carrying on to Amarillo, so as she headed to baggage claim I had shuffled through the sliding doors of the train for a ride from Terminal C to Terminal B. Ever moving without any effort. // Behind me in New Hampshire, single-digit temperatures would soon brace the maple trees outside my home. Up ahead I would walk across prairie fields beneath turbines taller than 25 story buildings, the blades turning in the late winter wind. The energy they capture gets fed into a power line and shipped back toward Dallas, where the shuttling never stops. // On my second flight, suspended one mile above the earth and bound for Amarillo, I was numb to dimensions of time and place. I shifted in my seat. A father and son sat behind me. The jet descended through clouds and banked above Palo Duro Canyon, making its final approach. The land beneath was soon flat pasture and strip mall, a blur of brown earth and neon bright. The plane glided low past the big box hotels and the Bell Helicopter assembly plant. The wings bobbed as the wheels waited to touch pavement. The boy, his face pressed tight against the plastic window for the view, did not turn his head, but said to his father, or himself, "some toy airplanes can fly higher than this."#travel #writing #instaessay #texas #energy #fuelwalk #unh808
A post shared by Tom Haines (@twhaines) on Mar 12, 2017 at 4:13pm PDT
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