The man sitting next to me is a tightly wound bundle of energy, or ADD, hard to tell. He is in his 60s, lean and wiry like a crazed marathoner, and does everything quickly and with gusto. He stuffs a laptop and a book, Michael Lewis’ Premonition into the seatback pocket and pulls out a large plastic bag which contains, as it turns out, multiple sandwiches and some blue cheese (for which he apologizes later. We agree boiled eggs would have resulted in a seat change request.)

Reading on my phone, I sneak glances at him as he’s eating his first sandwich, some deli meat on brown bread, and I smell the distinctive fragrance of lettuce and mayo; you know that smell from childhood? It’s not something you’d normally smell on an airplane but when was the last time you saw someone bring sandwiches FROM HOME, on a flight?

The first repast concluded he assertively bundles up the waste, smashes it into the larger bag and pulls out the laptop which he sets up on the tray table. He’s scrolling through a complex, dense document in the way people do when they know there’s something there and are just scanning to find it in a sea of letters. Every so often he pauses, pulls out an old school lined exercise book, and furiously carves comments into it, pressing hard enough to make 6 copies, if necessary.

In a little while he nudges me gently and gestures to the window, enquiring quietly if I’d mind just…gesture…pulling down the blind. He points to the laptop screen which is blinded by the 30 thousand foot elevation, unmitigated sunshine. I happily comply as my arm and shoulder are burning and I’m working up a sweat down my right side.

Am I peeking at the document he’s reading? OF COURSE I AM! From what I can tell it’s an overview of some technical, land based project with maps and graphics and pointy arrows indicating important features.

Are you an engineer? I ask. He gives a quirky little smile as if it had been his childhood dream, thwarted by harsh reality.

Well, sort of…I’m retired and work for a citizens group that monitors open pit aggregate mines to make sure they don’t impact nearby towns and neighbourhoods.

There are obviously a lot of technical reports to digest. He goes on to tell me that southern Ontario is littered with these open gravel pits and that many of them are cheek by jowl to homes. Who knew?

I glance out the window and see thousands of sun dappled, smallish farmsteads, laid out in that wonderful checkerboard you see only from above. They spread out below us and into the distance in all directions.

And then I see them. The open pit aggregate operations. And there are dozens of them just in the small slice of Ontario below me.

My seatmate continues to whip through the report on his laptop, continues to carve comments into his lined exercise book, and eats another sandwich. This is when the blue cheese comes out.

I begin to tally the number of interesting conversations I’ve had while travelling, also the number of mind-numbing conversations I’ve been subjected to from people sitting behind me, the nuggets of new information and observation I’ve tucked away like an airborne squirrel, nuts for another day.

For example, it’s lamentable that Westjet’s endearingly familiar breeziness has devolved into a patronizing over familiarity and am sad that such good things must pass.

And then I head to the Uber stand in search of Nedungeril who will tell me his story.

Much as travel has it charms, challenges and rewards, the best one comes at the very end, when you get to come home.

With that, here’s a 2008 David Foster concert where Michael Bublé and Blake Shelton perform together, singing Home.

Until next time, happy trails.

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