Driving home to San Francisco from a job down peninsula I made an wrong turn. To be honest, I exited the freeway near the airport on a whim, thinking I just wanted to be near planes. I thought: maybe I can just see them out the window. Get close enough that I can roll down the windows and smell airplane exhaust.
Call me crazy. But if you're an aviation enthusiast like me, I'm preaching the gospel.
After passing by a string of chunky airport hotel high rises, there it was -- SFO -- otherwise known as San Francisco International Airport. The parallel runways 28R and 28L stretched out long and low along a sheet of blue glass to my right. The San Francisco Bay, an estuary of the Pacific Ocean's salty water and the fresh waters from rivers from locations north and east, was calm and reflecting blue sky.
It was a rare cloudless day. Not a puff of fog anywhere.
On the right side of the road ahead of me I spotted a sign that read, Bayfront Park, Public Shoreline. That was all the sign I needed, pun intended.
I pulled into the small parking lot and soon discovered that I was not the only plane spotter around today. When I got lucky and got a parking spot, I saw why so many people were still sitting in their cars and pick-ups. Through my windshield was a clear view to runways 1R and 1L, where airliners were lined up and awaiting tower clearance for take off.
Unable to contain my excitement in the car, I exited and was rewarded with the powerful thrust of a Boeing 737 taking off on 1R. I pulled out my phone and opened the Live ATC app, pressing play after inserting earbuds.
"G-day!" I heard. Yes, a good day it was.
Next I opened FlightRadar24 so I could follow the planes, both commercial and corporate, coming in for a landing on 28R or 28 L and taking off on 1R and 1L. Occasionally a large airplane, such as an Airbus A300 carrying cargo or a Boeing 787 Dreamliner filled with internationally bound passengers, would taxi down to the end of 1L for a take off that needed a longer runway.
A whiff of air brought the smell of aviation exhaust mixed with the mud and brine of the Bay. Looking for lunch, shore birds poked their long yellow beaks into the banks of dark, slick mud exposed by a receding tide. Flocks of white and gray gulls kept to their side of the airport fence, more interested in their feeding grounds than the airplanes.
I loved them all -- the birds, the planes... Ah, but no Superman -- or Captain Marvel, for that matter. Regardless, I felt saved. I was saved from it being just another day of transitioning from nurse to mom.
The day I took a wrong turn I found extra lift from the airport by the bay.
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