Usually I sit on the aisle. But not when the American West is involved. Yesterday I grabbed a window seat so I could snap the vistas when I saw them … the jagged peaks and dark valleys.

… a river snaking through brown hills,

… a blue lake shaped like a jigsaw puzzle piece,

… and the snowy, showy Grand Tetons.

I was never quite sure where I was — but my phone camera’s location finder knew. We flew over the Cascades, down to Pomeroy in southeastern Washington State. From there over Sugar City and Dubois, Idaho, to Bridger-Teton and Medicine Bow National Forests in Wyoming. And from there, we flew into Denver.

Those were the geographic realities. But from my window seat I saw only shapes and shadows, geometric purity. It seemed like I was seeing the essence of things.