Climbing through the layers....

Everyone has a memory of those rare, but oh soo beautiful sunsets, where there are high rippling clouds that turn bright orange-red as the sun sets? Well, this afternoon, on my flight back from Florida, I not only saw one of these skies -- I also got to approach it, fly through it, and see it from above! It was one of the most memorable flights I have ever had.

We took off in late afternoon, as the sun was settling a bit above the horizon in the west. There was a warm, humid haze hanging in the air, and three layers of clouds - scattered puffy cumulus at the bottom, a middle layer of occasional stratus, and a wonderful, rippling set of high clouds, far above - seemingly higher than one could believe flying. A mackerel sky in the making.

As we ascended through the lower layer, the first gallery appeared. Pink clouds overhead, and the lit tops of the puffy clouds - the sun itself was obscured much of the time by the middle layer, and the entire sky was made of millions of sun rays in the haze. Each cloud cast a three dimensional shadow through the sky, making columns of light and dark. Unlike on the ground, as the plane moved, you got to see the fronts, sides and backs of these silver shafts, like flying though a forest of roman columns.

As we continued to rise into the roof of the sky, the sun slowly sank in the horizon, and the clouds above, looking like a washboard road, shimmered in orange. But now, they appeared to be within reach - impossibility's bluff being called. Further and further up we rose, and as we passed through the fire, the world briefly changed into a flashing, moving immersion in flaming colors. Then, like geese leaving a pond in the early morning light, we raised above the surface of the world, and took flight over our new scarlet sea. A burning, brilliant sea, complete with rolling waves.

Little did I know that the show was not yet over. Then sun, finally touching the horizon, slowly set, the same as one sees over the western ocean - but here, with a red sea. But unlike a sea, as it set, the color under me faded, but remained bright as ever as I looked west. Like a slowly falling curtain, the moving edge of red turning blue-grey moved across the sky, retreating into the infinite distance.

I slept. When I awoke later, the world had changed - hazy colored sky was now a crystal clear, midnight blue flickering panorama, with a distant city. My home.