(A USA meets the UK travel tale)
EXTRACT: ….. An hour later we were stood outside one of Peggy’s favourite refreshment spots and it soon became apparent why.
Unsuitably dressed in mufti, we entered the foyer of the Hilton International hotel.
We caught the lift up to a cafeteria area and took our seats by a window that looked down onto the streets below. Now, this wasn’t something as low lying as say the fifth floor. It was more like the forty-fifth. The views across the Seattle skyline, with all its futuristic illuminations was truly spectacular. It was the daddy of all views, gazing down onto just about every other building in the city and out across the straits of the Puget Sound. Our tour was reaching its end and we had the most impressive seats in the metropolis.
“Oh, the best is yet to come,” Peggy said. Although, I couldn’t see how it could get any more spectacular than this. Then we heard a distant roar. Our jaws dropped as she pointed out of our window at a locally manufactured Boeing Jumbo Jet, as it passed by on its descent to the airport.
It wasn’t so much the aerial view that our window afforded of this mechanical beast, as its proximity to our seats.
It felt like it was less than a hundred feet away, although in reality, it must have been a lot more. If we had a pair of high-powered binoculars, we could probably identify the newspapers that passengers still had on their laps. And of course, being a major conurbation, we didn’t have to wait too long for the next plane to coast along on its ascent or descent.
Our views of this air show were exhilarating, spectacular and of course, to the uninitiated, quite scary. With all that was to come in New York eight years later, are people still brave enough to travel up to the forty-fifth floor to do a bit of plane spotting? Indeed, do the Jumbo Jets still use the same flight path? ……
For full tale, see My Pretty Peggy Sue
Back to Blog Home Page or Site Excerpts Slider
Main website http://theancienthighway.com
