The Thrill of Flight

In 1939, then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt designated August 19th as National Aviation Day, the birthdate of Orville Wright.

The inaugural flight (December 17, 1903) of the pioneering Wright Brothers lasted just twelve seconds. Nearly 70 years later I too would take my maiden aeronautical voyage, a two-hour jaunt from Boston to Bermuda. My mother, tired of spending every Thanksgiving in an apron, decided she would like to travel for the holiday. My attachment to her legendary apple pie recipe immediately evaporated at the thought of being on an airplane. My love affair with travel has never ceased.

I am not alone in this zeal. Approximately 45,000 flights take off and land each day in the United States, close to 150,000 worldwide. Some of these are utilitarian in nature, cargo planes as an example. But most of these departures are part of an adventure, even if their origins are more dutiful than dazzling.

The impulse to travel is something I've felt in my bones before I even knew what to call it.

Up, up, and away......

"Them: What one book changed your life? Me: My passport."