Related Posts:Beautiful post-snow sunrise over Baltimore
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Sunset drive to BWI
December 28, 2010, 12:20 pm View CommentsAs I left Baltimore and merged onto southbound 95, a post-snow sunset lit the clouds on fire. Even the plume from the Baltimore smokestack participated and turned purple against the winter twilight. I approached the airport loop and watched planes ascend in silhouette. The light didn’t dim right away after the sun set, but instead shifted from vibrant gold and pink to deep orange. Traffic slowed as awestruck drivers gazed into the sky. It looked inviting, and I got excited about being in the air, a big deal for a guy whose whole body goes rigid during take-offs and landings.
We were fortunate to miss the brunt of the storm over Christmas. Just east of us, other parts of Maryland got nearly ten inches of snow. Had the winds blown differently or the storm tracked just a few miles west of where it went, we would have gotten hammered, and my flight to Atlanta would have been canceled. But I got lucky, and my flight only ran 33 minutes late.
By the time I got my car situated in long-term parking and shielded myself in a bus shelter from the razor-sharp gusts of icy wind, the horizon was blood red. Airplanes taxied, and the warm-colored light shimmered on their aluminum bodies. I was joined by a family heading home from the holidays. The kids compared notes about new video games they got, and the exhausted-looking parents braced themselves against the cold that still found its way into the shelter. When the bus arrived to take us to the terminal, the show in the sky was over, having faded through purples to navy blue to black.