The Long, Long Sunset Across America

The afternoon flight to Detroit on the Delta regional jet (actually Skywest, of course) was late leaving Memphis. While on the runway, we were rerouted around a large storm sytem in Indiana and had to go back to the gate take on more fuel.  First class was surly with discontent as a few folks took the opportunity to deplane. I figured I would probably miss my connection entirely, and just went with the flow.

Fortunately we made up some time in the air, so that when we started descending over ther treefilled suburban neighborhoods Dearborn, we were only an hour behind schedule. Moreover my connecting flight, which had come up from Nashville, was also delayed because of the storm system.

Nevertheless I'd have to hotfoot the connection with time to spare. I squeezed out of the plane quickly, then had run with my backpack on.

The new McNamara Terminal in Detroit is beautiful. I skipped the shuttle train, so barely had time to  pause to watch the fountain in the middle of terminal. The water made leaping parabolas against the setting sun across the tarmac.

Having a first class seat on the big jet made it easy to slip onto the plane at the last minute. I really felt as if I'd "leveled up."

When we took off it was almost sunset--about a half hour of daylight left. I watched the darkling landscape of Michigan go by underneath, until we reached the lake, the western part of which was laden by a layer of fog over it. The ice has been late in melting this year.

About that time I noticed that the orange disk of the sun was perched just above the horizon towards the northwest. It was so low that one could look right at it without causing eye strain.  I remarked that it would set in a matter of minutes.

As we flew over Milwaukee, I looked down at the shore line at the marina north of the city.

As we flew over southern Wisconsin, the last wisp of the sun, just at the edge of the horizon, gave a dark topographic shadows over the hills. One could see north to the magnificent shiny surface of Lake Winnebago, and the early evening glow of the cities around it. Then later the hills became more jagged, around the river that gives the state its name, as well as the name of the last era of glaciation here..

About that time I sank into watcing movie on the little screen on the back of the seat in front of me. About half an hour later, I looked out the window again, when we were over southern Minnesota. I could see right down into the streets of Mankato.

When the plane slightly turned, I noticed to my surprise that the sun was still perched on the horizon, in exactly the place as the last time I had seen it, nearly an hour before.

Seeing the sun in the same place had a very disorienting effect on me for an instant. At first I thought that the sun had actually set, and that we had caught up to it, causing it to rise again in the west. Then I realized that was absurd. We had been flying straight at the sun as it set, and nearly the speed of the rotation of the earth. It was pleasing to realize this was the case.

The sun continued to linger just on the horizon as we flew over the pothole lakes of the vast Coteau in eastern South Dakota, around which the lobes of the last glacier split.

Finally near the Wyoming border the sun outpaced us, and the land became totally dark, punctured by the lights of Sheridan, and I-25. But even then, as we passed over Montana and Idaho, the orange band of twilight stayed on the horizon. As we came down the Columbia gorge, there was still tangerine brightness along the western horizon, delightfully framing the dark towers of the Washington volcanoes, Adams and Rainer, in the the endless bounty of daylight as we came down into Portland.