Groew – I’m completely pooped.

I start my third year of photos today with a real cop-out shot – the view from the plane window as the pilot said ‘it’s very bumpy out there today so we’ve climbed to 29,000 feet to escape the turbulence.’ It’s not a great photo, partly because of a lack of contrast on the original leading to major levels adjustment but I got the camera out and snapped too quickly for the niceties of changing things buried deep in my menu on my camera – the sun was on this red rock formation and looked great so I snapped. Given that it’s nearly six thirty pm and we’re way away from our supposed destination still (having been due to land at 4pm). We have no idea whether we’re going to get there today.

From the window of the plane I’ve seen some strange stuff. Vast expanses of terrain that looks as inhospitable as it’s possible to be, punctuated by a very occasional road and at points where two roads cross, often a small cluster of buildings – presumably around petrol stations. It baffles me totally why any human being would want to live in such places but there is certainly evidence that some folks do. I’ve been amazed by the tenacity of the early settlers in America – why on earth would anyone set off across such land when they had no idea something so lovely as the Pacific coastal region was on the other side!! Later, great expanses of farmland with fields of beige stretched out endlessly – no sign of green, even at this time of year, the end of the winter with the rain and replenishment it usually brings. I wondered what could possibly grow there.

Now, as I write this, we’re sitting on Pittsburgh runway in a plane that has no fuel and needs maintenance before taking off (hopefully) tonight to get to JFK airport. The good news is that the weather situation is improving in New York (let’s hope that stays the same) and they’ve got two runways open so if we can get away from here it seems possible that we will end up sleeping in the luxury hotel room that I booked for us as a special treat tonight. Fingers, toes and everything else humanly possible are crossed!!!

I’ve been watching David writing his thing as we’ve progressed on this flight and been feeling dismally unable to muster the wit that characterises his post today. I just want to eat, have a bath and sleep and these three things seem tantalisingly close yet as far away as it’s possible to be all in one go.

Again we find ourselves hopelessly unprepared, we don’t have the hotel details written down anywhere (I have its address in my head) and even if we did, the mobile loaned to us by the lovely Sarah doesn’t work here after all so we can’t phone them to make sure they keep our room. This is the second time this trip – the first occasion when it happened was when we came into the USA and didn’t have a clue where we were staying, other than it was ‘at Jeanne’s house’ so when we came to complete our immigration forms we had no address to declare. We asked the flight attendant who told us to ‘put something’ or we’d have problems so we plucked the name of an hotel chain from the air and prayed there was one in SF. We both cheered as we landed at the airport and saw the one we’d declared on the plane’s taxi into the stand!!!

Lara was supposed to be meeting us at our hotel to go out for a meal in Manhattan tonight so I do hope she’s realised that the airport has been closed or she’ll be really fed-up with us too.

We have just seen a fuel truck pull up below the plane – whooppeee – perhaps our day will start to improve soon? If this gets posted tonight it’ll mean one of two things – either we end up in an hotel in Pittsburgh for the night or alternatively we’ve made it into NYC – either seems preferable to sitting in this hot, smelly cabin, unable to communicate with the outside world.

UPDATE: It's 3.20am in NYC and we've just had our supper delivered after arriving at our hotel at 2.15am, following a fifteen hour plane journey from SF. So, I'm off for my toasted cheese sarnie (grilled swiss to the Americans reading this),chips (fries) and Bud! How I ache.

Last year I was telling stories and two years ago I was watching the master illustrator at work.