From Sea To Shining Sea

10/01/99

My wife and I have begun a sixteen day trek through the west that will take us from San Francisco to Yosemite National Park, to Death Valley and Las Vegas where we'll be attending The Red Ball Block Party hosted by About.com next Saturday, October 8, 1999. From there we'll be heading to the California central coast on a return drive to San Francisco before we return to our home in the Philadelphia area.

As we flew across the United States on a relatively clear day, I could not help but once again be amazed by the sheer geographical diversity of our nation. No where is this more clear that from the air. A coast to coast flight in the daylight presents a whole unique way to see America.

The flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco is about six hours in length. Over the course of those six hours you leave behind you the northeast and industrial Midwest. Between the great cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indianapolis and Chicago are scattered small towns and much more farmland and forests than one might expect to see.

Then, for well over an hour you fly across the Great Plains of the Midwest and look down upon what can only be described as the patchwork quilt of America's geography as fields of corn, grain, and other crops all stand out with their unique colors and designs.

The Great Plains, however, end abruptly when after about three and a half hours into the flight you pass Denver and come to the edge of the Rocky Mountains.

The Rocky Mountains - Photo by John Fischer

Looking down upon these mountains for much of the next hour, you cannot help but stand in awe of the western pioneers who traversed these mountains as they made their way west - not in hours as we did today, but in months. Even today as you fly across these mountains, you see areas still untouched by man.

The Rockies end, however, and like the settlers who forged this way before you, you next encounter the Great Basin of western Utah and Nevada. Here roads appear crossing great areas of desert. These roads extend for miles from horizon to horizon.From 35,000 feet they look as if they have been drawn by a ruler on this virtual map of America that you are experiencing. Just when you think that no life exists, a small town or city appears only to fade in the distance as you proceed further west.

As the Great Basin ends, another great mountain range appears, the Sierra Nevada, much more uniform than the Rockies and giving the clear impression from above that they were literally forced upwards by some great giant squeezing the land from each side.

Sierra Nevada - Photo by John Fischer

The central valleys of California stand separate the Sierra Nevada and a range of coastal mountains that are the last hurdle before your reach the Pacific.

Finally, our flight across America brings us to our destination. Six hours before we had left the city where the United States was founded. We arrive in a great city of the west where so many men and women have arrived over the past two centuries to find a new life in a new land.

As we took off from Philadelphia, we could see the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the tip of New Jersey at Cape May. As we landed in San Francisco we could see the Pacific Ocean in the distance past the Golden Gate Bridge. Our journey had literally taken us from sea to shining sea.

Join us as we continue our Trek through the American West.

John Fischer is the About.com Guide to Philadelphia