31,000 Foot Sunrises
It all started with a phone call at 8:08 pm on Friday night. “Emily, they are going to launch a rocket tomorrow morning and we can see it from the dock here at the house.” The voice on the other line of the telephone came through clear and excited. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” was my response.
My sister and parents had just settled into the Airbnb we rented in Florida. I had been planning on road tripping down with them that weekend but after finding out I couldn’t miss any classes due to a quiz that day. Note to the wise, if what is stopping you from doing something great is a measly little quiz, just skip it (especially if you failed it anyway).
“Well if you want to come down here, try and find a friend to go with you,” my dad says. Immediately an insane amount of excitement bubbles up inside me. “Really?!” “Sure, don’t worry, we’ll find someone to watch the house and the pets.” Instantly I started texting and calling friends seeing if they were in town and wanted to drive the eight hours with me to Florida. After twenty minutes of various calls and texts, pacing back and forth in my house, I called my dad back. “Nobody is close enough to drive with me.” He suggested the next best thing, we find a flight leaving Charlotte, North Carolina and landing in Orlando, Florida, the closet town to where our rental house was. This was quickly followed by me running around the house searching for leftover summer clothes in my closet. I had only brought home winter jackets and pants for the weekend which quickly became a challenge.
Half an hour later, after busy airport phone lines and crashed ticket websites, my neighbors drove me to the airport in hopes that there would be an empty seat on the last flight leaving the CLT airport on Friday night. We pulled up to the departure terminal, I ran out of the car and rushed to the first American Airlines attendant I could find. Unfortunately, we were too late and there were no more tickets left. I couldn’t even be put on standby. My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. One thing you should know about me, when I get excited about something, I get super excited. Like majorly excited. So needless to say, I had my heart set on going to Florida. Maybe it was because I hated being alone in a big empty house, or because I missed my family, or I was just sick of it being so cold outside. Maybe it was because the adrenaline of flying by myself for the first time and crossing that line off my bucket list was so powerful or maybe it was everything combined, but I had made my mind up that I was going to Florida one way or another…so I bought a ticket for a flight that left at 5:00 am and drove back home, proceeding to sleep an hour before getting back up again…I have no regrets.
2:30 am, my alarm started to go off, telling me it was time for adventure again. My neighbors picked me up and drove me back to the airport. (Life tip #23954: find neighbors as nice as mine and you’ll be set for life). For the second time in a few hours, I jumped out of the car, ran inside the airport and excitement rushed over me again. I’ll admit, trying to figure how to get through security, make sure you have everything you came with, don’t lose your phone or boarding pass and find the correct terminal was a little confusing. I didn’t realize how scary it would be to fly by myself for the first time. I know that a lot of work goes into flying, but I didn’t understand the gravity of it until I was the adult responsible for myself and everything else.
An hour into the flight the sun began to rise. A fiery red line expanded, eventually meeting the royal blue horizon. Pink light lit up the sky and filled up the plane as cities started to slowly flicker away. At that moment, all the anxieties of flying drifted away. That sunrise was probably the best one I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few sunrises. I didn’t sleep at all that flight. The excitement of watching the sunrise from 31,000 feet up in the air kept me awake.
As the plane started to descend, I closed my eyes in complete peace. At 7:00 in the morning on Saturday, I landed in Orlando, Florida. My dad picked me up and drove me the hour to our rental house. I said hi to my mom and sister, ate some breakfast and sat on the dock watching dolphins swim in the bay outside the house.
I’ve recently been feeling like college has been keeping me in one place, making it hard for me to travel. But I guess this trip proves that wrong. Sometimes all you need is a little bit of travel jealously to get you to buy a plane ticket and fly to Florida to have a little bit of adventure…even if it is for less than 48 hours. Also, little life tip, if there is some opportunity presented to you, once in a lifetime or not, just do it. In a year (weeks and months even) you won’t remember the class you went to or the quiz you took, but you’ll remember the memories of choosing the experience instead.
