Getting on an airplane means I am going somewhere new or interesting or at least away from where I am currently.  It also means enduring the actual flight.  Which is something that I really dislike.  Ok.  Hate.

One time I was flying from Boston to Reykjavik and the turbulence was so bad that I thought I was utterly going to jump out of my skin.  During that flight, I was white knuckling it.  I couldn’t eat anything.  I just sat there in my seat convinced that our next bump was going to be our last one.

Topping or equalling that experience was the time I flew from Philadelphia to New York in some kind of crop duster used by the Wright Brothers.  No, I’m kidding.  But it was just as awful.  We were in the air for 45 minutes of sheer and utter hell.  The plane shook side to side, up and down.  I felt like Richie Valens on that plane with the Big Bopper in the movie La Bamba.  We were going to die.

Obviously, in both cases, we reached the ground eventually.  THANK GOD.

Today I took a flight that we can add to annals of awful flights.  We were flying into some crazy weather front over the entire east coast of America.  The pilots warned us ahead of time that the flight would be bumpy but they should have said “we’re flying directly into a huge storm front.  Expect to be shaken for the entire flight, including the approach to the airport.”  I looked out the window to see the wings shaking and being pelted by an insane amount of rain.  I prayed to the only god I know — the Real Housewives of Atlanta.  As the tin can shook, I watched Phaedra try to repair her marriage to Apollo and Nene premiere her line of leggings and tops on HSN.  Anything to distract me from that insane shaking.

I’m back on solid ground.  But I still hate flying.

Alas, only through flying could I have gotten these thoroughly excellent shots.  Click to make them larger: