“‘Echo’ of the Past” Greg’s January, 2016 Flying Carpet column

Ten hours home

Good times not withstanding, Jean and I were more than ready to head home following eight days on the road.

The daylong journey from Aurora, Illinois to Flagstaff, Arizona appeared daunting, however, especially against headwinds. If necessary we’d stay over with our friend Bruce in Santa Fe, just two hours from home.

A country church filled our windshield after takeoff this morning, but how much closer could we get to heaven than these sparkling Sunday skies? Yes, there was weather through Illinois and Missouri, but we dodged it easily enough. Initially we faced a ten-knot headwind. I’ll accept that westbound, anytime! But gradually it grew to twenty knots, and then thirty. Changing altitudes didn’t help. That gave us plenty of time to discuss the week’s travels.

This journey originated two years ago, when Howard Spanogle, long-ago faculty advisor for the Echo high school newspaper where I once served as photography editor, proposed a reunion. At first this seemed overkill—after all there were only a handful of Echo staffers at a given time. However “Mr. S” had been adviser for 26 years, so there’d be many attendees beyond my immediate circle. Jean hesitated to go until my closest Echo friends talked their spouses into attending. After all, who are we these decades later without them?

Flying “East” is a trek, so en route we’d capitalized on the Flying Carpet’s flexibility to visit friends and family.