High Above Chicago

“Where’s your luggage?” asked the friendly, over-cologned Middle Eastern airport shuttle driver.

I was traveling even lighter than I usually do as I headed to Midway Airport in Chicago; the second city’s, second airport.  Besides picking up friends, this would be the only time I was heading to the airport and not exactly flying anywhere…well not anywhere in particular.

We had one other pick-up to make on the way and a couple of nuns entered the van.   So, two nuns, a Muslim, and a Jew are headed to the airport…okay, that’s not the first line to a joke, it is just how it was.  It was a real party van.

So where was I going? Well, first let me tell you where I’d been a week earlier.

I had received a comment on my blog about a photograph I’d taken.  The comment was from the CEO of one of the largest media companies in the United States.  You can understand why I thought I was being spammed at first, but, nope, it was real.

Cut to a few days later and we were having lunch.  He commented on my entrepreneurial/unconventional yet logical spirit and how I’d managed to get off the beaten path and was really living the life I wanted.  He actually had me semi-pegged fairly quickly.  He said they are always looking for  new, innovative ‘people’ and he wanted to introduce me to a few people.  Well, I am always open to meeting people.

Later that afternoon, I met some other executives and one in particular said he was flying that weekend just for a photo shoot around Lake Michigan.

I said, “Cool.”

He said, “Would you like to join us??”

“Uh, yeah!”

So back to the van full of nuns.   They got out at the regular airport terminal to board their passé commercial airline while I was shuttled to this special small exclusive terminal for private planes. Oh yeah.  We flew in his private four-seater plane around the Lake Michigan for two hours. It was immensely cool. It was a beautiful day with cobalt blue skies and low winds so it felt incredibly invigorating yet very calming at the same time.

Take a look: