Mountains, Please Don't Make Me Leave!

Imagine the whitest white you have ever seen multiplied times 100, and you might be able to picture the brilliant white outside my Alaskan Airlines window as we take off and head toward home.  AHHHH!
My mountains!   Besides the dogs and having the best adventure I have ever had, the mountains were the  thing I  regretted leaving behind the most, and, yet, here they were...bright as bright could be, shining in all their sun-lit splendor through my plane window--as if just for me.

The brightest summer sun made them glow as their ultra-whiteness intermingled with the billowy white clouds floating by.  Range after range spread across the sky.  I didn't dare take my eyes off of them.   They called up so many memories from our trip.    I remembered the first ranges we had seen when we set foot in Alaska after a whole day's journey so many days ago, and the glory of them on our first road-trip driving south of Anchorage the next day.  I remembered them in rain and fog, and I remembered them as we headed north of Anchorage another day, when mountains surrounded us on three sides.   We were told not to expect to see Mt. McKinley (a.k.a Denali) as we headed toward Talkeetna, but it was clear as clear could be on the one day we could be there.   No writing was completed on those trips; I was simply entranced by them and could not bear to be distracted.   All of these memories competed with one another as I watched the panorama of white majesty unfold in front of me now as we were flying over them, as we traveled away from this Alaska that had claimed a new and precious place in my heart.

Gradually, I could tell my mountains were becoming fewer and fewer.  I turned around and looked backwards through my plane window until I could see them no more, much the way I do when one of our daughters is leaving on a trip.   I console myself:   hold on, hold on, hold on:    I can still see a spec, an outline, a familiar gate.  But then, they are gone--except still and always in my heart.  Farewell, Alaska:   I will never forget.  Bye, mountains: you are unforgettable and rise ever in my heart.   Promise to stay there until I return again.