Lansing as originally booked, but from Detroit, arriving there, just in time. After a leisurely morning, getting to Lansing Capital Airport in plenty of time to sit and have yet another cup of coffee, we said our "good-byes" waving to each other as the escalator took her out of sight. Off I went to finish errands, getting home, and a phone call, airplane mechanical problems, "come pick me up." The trip to DTW was charged with angst. Did I take a longer route? should I have gone down MLK to I-496? "Would you please drive a little faster! (?)" I passed two MI State Police cars out with their radar guns, I wasn't stopped going 77 MPH. Down I-275, we ran into a brief but torrential downpour; raining so fast that the fastest speed of the windshield wipers could not keep up. Thank goodness for my purchase of rain tires for Big Red. Then, which route to take? to the International terminal, again, we went the long way. Finally at Delta International terminal; out and unloaded both big bags, brief kiss and off she went. Kathy had previously remarked that a family who were on the same flight in Lansing and traveling to England were driving to DTW in their VW Golf and didn't have room for Kathy. I saw a family, egress from a Golf, scrambling with their bags. I wondered if this were the same family as the one Kathy had mentioned. If so, someone still had to park the car. I guess we made good enough choices ourselves. I drove to a McDonalds at the far Eastern side of the airport, ate and waited. Phone call, she was booked onto another flight, this one a direct flight to Shanghai, no intermediate stop in Tokyo, upgraded to business class, seat A-1, handed an orange juice and champaign, and, settling in to her comfortable seat. I could leave now.
The trip back was altered as the entrance ramp onto Northbound I-275 was closed for construction, so I drove West on I-94 past Ann Arbor to exit 159, the Chelsey exit and headed North on M-52. Now I was traveling "country", rich green fields, winter wheat thick and knee high, corn already knee high and this isn't even the 4th of July; ponds full of water, cattle pastured. Just as I was coming upto MI-36, an East-West road and my turn towards Mason MI to avoid the I-96 traffic and construction, in a field on the right was a bird, a tall bird, with buff colored neck and wing markings. Instead of all white like an Egret, this bird had light tan colored markings, standing in the middle of a field, dart-like spearing a prey, this on land and not wading in water.
Today, I Googled and found the bird, a Cattle Egret, in breeding plumage, no longer confined to the Iberian Peninsula, but has now spread, over the last 200 years, to become world wide, as cattle rearing has spread all over the world as well. I had never seen one before. It is sometime surprising what one finds and learns when you keep your eyes open, and are "mindful."
No comments:
Post a Comment