In-Flight Entertainment

Tonight I flew through some of the most astounding clouds I've ever seen: solid mountains of gleaming white that originated far below what I could see from my plane seat, and rose up what looked like miles above our jet. It was right around sunset, and every now and again, these cumulonimbus clouds (I had to look that up) were lit from behind or inside and glowed shell pink and soft gold. And then they turned dark and grim looking, and the lightening started sparking though them with big blasts of white light. That was when the clouds stopped looking gorgeous and started closing in on the plane, and we started bouncing around. There were two off duty pilots on the other side of the isle from me, and even they were dazzled by the clouds. I caught the eye of one of them and made an intelligent comment like, "those are some clouds, huh?" and he looked serious and said, "oh yeah, those are some clouds." This was not a comforting exchange. I wanted a lighthearted, "nah, that's nothing." That was when the pilot--the real one, not my off duty pal--came on to tell us it was going to get a little choppy and ordered the flight attendant to strap herself in for the duration. "There's some tornadic activity in the area," he said. Those were some clouds, all right. Honestly, I've had worse flights. But I've never seen an in-flight show like that like that one. What a ride.

None of the photos I've found on the internet are as stunning as what I saw tonight, but this hints at it:



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