his best day….ever
monday sebastian had an idyllic, exciting afternoon.
one of the drawing cards of coming to yellowknife for him was the promise of being able to watch the float planes land on great slave lake. monday afternoon i called air tindi, the main float operator, and asked them when there would be a lot of action that afternoon. come by between 4-6 they told me.
i packed a little picnic lunch for sebastian. cheese and ham slices, dried apple slices, orange and a long yogurt. a cup of milk. and a halloween sized box of smarties that i almost ate myself but decided not to.
my little sister mandy drove us down to "old town" and we parked at air tindi. sebastian was very excited, as the parking lot is about 10 feet from where the planes are parked. he raced over to the planes and started asking anyone questions about the planes. they were really patient with him.
i asked a fellow there where we could sit, and he gestured to a set of stairs leading to some rocks overlooking the water behind the main office. we clambered up there and sat down. gave sebastian a warning about walking too close to the rocky edge. he sat down between mandy and i and started rubbing the lichen covered rocks.
we talked about several topics, looked at the houseboats, watched a dog with a tongue so long it appeared to be a third ear sniffing the air jubilantly as its owner operated a little putt-putt of a boat.
sebastian got up and walked around a little bit, announcing that "i will be back in five minutes!". i informed him that would not be the case and he scuttled back to me, carefully navigating the rocks.
one of yellowknife’s shortcomings can be the black flies and mossies. but there was a breeze that kept the bugs away and so we just squinted into the sun and watched the water. it was gorgeous, and as sebastian threw rocks into the water, we smiled and were very content.
and then we heard one of the floats start up, and so we raced into optimum viewing area. the plane cruised along the water and sebastian started yelling to it, "goodbye plane, goodbye!" and the pilots saw my little man and waved at him. crack, oh yes, that was my heart breaking.
it taxied for a while along the water, and then revved up, skated along the water, and lifted up.
the sky was blue and we watched the plane curve, then there is that confusing bit where you don’t know if it is coming toward you or flying away from you, and then it was smaller, and finally gone. just the blue blue sky again.
sebastian was enchanted.
we witnessed this performance three more times. the sound made by the engine of one of the smaller, noisier planes really hurt his ears (little man!) so he kept close to me when they were taking off. the sun was hot, the bugs were no where near us, the sky was blue, the water was shiny.
we took some great photographs that shows how wonderful the day was. it was one of those afternoons that i wish sebastian could remember always, and probably won’t. maybe the photos will help prompt memories of, if not the event, then a remembrance of what he termed, "the best day, ever."
we’re going back this afternoon.
