Flight of Fancy

Most of the day was wasted waiting for my computer to be delivered. Repair was not possible, so I have to be very careful with it to keep from inflicting more, possibly fatal damage to the power supply.

After checking out of the hotel in Letterkenny, I took a taxi over to the Donegal Airport. I sat in the back seat and feigned sleep so as to avoid conversation with the driver, but I was in fact looking out the side window, watching the extraordinary landscape slip by through half closed eyes.

The weather today was the same as it has been since I arrived in Ireland, rainshowers, low ceilings, windy, and cold. Inside my taxi, I was warm and dry, and it was easy to imagine that I was flying low over the beautiful countryside, as I have imagined it so many times before. From the comfort of my taxi, I was indeed flying over the green heather covered hills and rocky glens, the streams and lakes. From the safety of my taxi I didn't need to be concerned with the low ceilings obscuring the mountains, for in my mind I could fly in ways which could never be duplicated in reality.

As each new turn of the road presented some new breathtaking vista, I was there in my biplane, creating an even more beautiful scene to the few farmers and sheep who might have chanced to look up at the moment. It was a most memorable flight of fancy, one that I will recall for many years after my flying days are done.

I have been longing to fly this wonderful land, to completely circumnavigate its coastline and to investigate its airports and villages, but it seems as if I have arrived here a little to late in the season. When I arrived at the Donegal airport, the cold wind was still gusting strong and straight across the runway, the low clouds spewing intermittent showers.

Only 3 airplanes used the Donegal airport today. Mine was not one of them.