Flying In

Nothing says “you’re own your own” like hoping on a plane for a destination you’ve never seen before and not knowing a soul who lives there. Telling yourself that an exciting experience awaits is one thing but the reality of leaving behind the people you care about most is not easy.  Knowing that some of those people are facing difficult situations makes it even harder. I really wish I could be there to offer support but rest assured you are on my mind.

The plane in this picture is not actually the one I flew out on…mine was smaller. You know you are off to a remote location when the plane holds 12 passengers and you can see the pilots sitting in the cockpit.  The aisle was only about a foot wide and the tallest part was roughly four feet high. I’m not that tall but even I had to sit with my knees pointed out to the sides of the seat in front of me.  Cozy for sure.  I’m not really sure how really tall or big people manage on these flights.  I was also warned ahead of time to graciously accept the earplugs they hand you as you board the plane.   The flight was pretty noisy but I did pull out the ear plugs for part of the time just to get the full effect, something about the warning buzzers and alarms made me put them back in though.

I wish it had been clearer but there was a lot of cloud cover the day I flew in, but at least it cleared up as we were coming in to Cross Lake.  It amazes me how much of Manitoba is water.  I always thought Ontario had a lot of lakes but Manitoba seems to be as much water as land.