American Vistas

When we took off from Denver's airport yesterday afternoon, going directly to the east, the air was clear, and as we climbed you could see the patchwork of green and brown squares that is the agricultural land that stretches from Denver to the Nebraska border, close enough to see the farm houses on each square but high enough to see the earth curve away at the horizon. Struck by how big this country is, I wanted to volunteer for Barack Obama right then.

On the way into Milwaukee, the pilot told us we had started our descent just as we passed over Madison - I could look down and see the Capitol, and the convention center on the lake shore designed by Frank Lloyd Wright but not built until just recently, and I found State Street stretching away on the diagonal. We flew past Milwaukee a fair way, out over the waters of Lake Michigan. I could see the waves in an even but also random pattern. There were white splashes every now and again, even though we were still up quite high I could see them, and I thought they might be flying fish but then realized they were just the larger waves breaking at the top. As we wheeled in a turn to head back to the runway, the sun was setting, so there was a wide orange strip on the water, and a few white sail boats still out sailing. Milwaukee is a very beautiful city when approached over the water at just this time of night.