Feb. 21-22:

Our last hours in Missoula were ones of quiet preparation.  We got an early start, after shoveling walks for the last time this year.  Six inches of the lightest-ever fluffy stuff had fallen over night.  As I peered out the window at 4 am at the crystalline and sparkling ground, it was hard to imagine that being replaced by the proverbial carpet of green by the next time we would see Missoula.  It was has been a long winter, hasn’t it?   Our friend Chris came along to drive our car back from the airport…he must have been up even earlier, because he was just finishing his own snow blowing operation as we arrived!  Chris— 5 AM!

The trip over the big pond was unbelievably smooth as far as connections go:  No delays whatsoever, interesting eavesdropping on the cockpit-air traffic controllers’ conversation as we approached Washington DC.  English is most definitely the international language of the air.  We enjoyed watching Secretariat, especially this horse lover with Virginia-Kentucky roots!   It was not quite as smooth, ride wise, with fairly severe turbulence from about 200 miles off the coast of Ireland over the entire island.  The captain even directed the flight crew to sit down.  I hoped we wouldn’t be making a first visit to the Emerald Isle unexpectedly (and why did I watch that PBS special on The Worst Airline Disasters three days before?)  Our longest layover was in Frankfurt (5 hours) but the hospitality of the Lufthansa Lounge let us recharge (great coffee, great breads, NUTELLA, a hot dog bar!), stretch out a bit (yes, pretty impossible to sleep sitting up on the airplane, even though we turned off the video and audio) and work harder on our German language skills.

I found myself marveling, as we flew from Missoula to Denver, Denver to Washington Dulles and Dulles to Frankfurt, Germany at the ability at the achievement of technology.  If we can pack 300 or so humans plus all their stuff into a fragile yet resilient container of plastic and metal and transport it all at 38,000 ft over mountains, plains and ocean on the slenderest of wings , why is it we cannot solve the problems confronting our world today?  We know so much, and yet we ‘know’ in the deepest sense of the word, so little.