Just flew into Denver, and I forgot how beautiful it is to fly into Denver International.

As we began to descend, we were in clear blue sky above a layer of thick white cloud. I had a window seat, and as I peered a bit right, I saw — rock. Coming from flat Florida–and even anywhere on the east coast, really — it’s easy to forget that you can be up near 20,000 feet and still have mountaintops sticking through the clouds. The Rockies — made me want to sing a verse of  America the Beautiful.

 And then when we landed, the runway was parallel to the very cool Jeppesen terminal, giving a ground-level view that was distant enough to get a perspective.  The Jepp is the one that looks like it dates back to the Crusades — a series of white tents, it appears, and you wouldn’t be surprised to see knights in armor bearing colorful standards riding forth to joust. Maybe I hadn’t used that runway before, maybe I’d been on the other side of the plane, but it was a great view and perspective and much different from the sense of it you get from the inside. (I know, it’s supposed to look like snow-capped peaks — but with the real Rockies hovering nearby, trust me, it looks like tents.)

Speaking of America the Beautiful — you’ll note that I arrived in Denver just in time for the first World Series home game for the Rockies. I’m rooting for the Red Sox, so if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you’ll know that I did a little too much hooting and hollering and got stuffed into a locker or something. The weather isn’t very beautiful — high 40s and overcast — but I hope that when they broadcast the game, they use some blue-sky daytime pictures to remind the viewers just how really beautiful these Rocky Mountains are.

–Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer