Notes from the road...

Geography Lesson



Flying over the Southwest always brings to mind the pictures and vocabulary from my junior high geography class...

Mesa
Canyon
Plateau
Playa
even Mountain

words, concepts, so abstract to a girl from Northern Michigan, where glaciers rounded and flattened, and trees cover, soften and hide what remains. Geography and geology are so much more apparent out here.


MUST KNOW

The man in front of me on the plane has an animal carrier from PetCo on his tray table. It is a quarter the size of a shoe box. I am overcome with curiosity . What is in there? Gecko? Snake? Very tiny kitten? And why did he need to bring it on the plane?


Star Power

The band members are obvious, the minute I walk into the airport terminal, even before they are surrounded by fans with cameras flashing. Well, surrounded is hyperbole. Politely approached by one middle-aged man after another... now clothed in polo shirts and golf windbreakers, but clearly they once aspired to something more edgy.
I'm wondering: Where do aging rock stars buy their clothes? I can't think of any place that a 60 year old man could go to buy pants that tight, that black.
Do the two new, 'younger' members, replacing those who left the band, feel they are sacrificing their own stardom, riding the fading coat tails of these older rockers? Or is this life everything they once dreamed of, strumming away in their orange shag bedrooms?