Travel Curiosities

I am 35,000 feet up in the air traveling at 551 mph in a giant metal beast carrying nearly 200 hundred other people all headed to NYC for some reason or another and it makes me think. When I travel there are two things I can’t help but think about:

1) Where are all these people going? There are over 200 of us who were willing to get on a 7:20am flight to get somewhere. To my comrade on this plane, where are you going and why is that place important to you? Is it work? family? family illness? travel? travel to a destination that is still days or hours away?

2) How the heck are we still in the air? I know we learned about aerodynamics in science class but it amazes be every time we take off that the plane doesn’t just come right back down again. Not only that but I am being beamed a wifi signal right now? where is it even coming from and how does it get to the plane and then to me? Is it from a satellite, a really powerful radio tower? Does the plane have an antenna - how does that affect flight? 

Seeing this picture only escalates my thinking. It is all the planes in the air at the same time. The green and blue planes are planes headed to or from Newark.

Audrey Grimes