Launch (Fall, 2000)

It's 05:30 or so, somewhere above Mississippi enroute to Mexico City. Our copy of USA Today, the official publication of any and all layover hotels, tells us the Space Shuttle is set to launch. In fact, it's set to launch right now. But Cape Canaveral is 500 miles away, clearly out of range to see the blastoff.

"Betcha we can see it," says the captain. He's lining up his digital camera against the window.

"Nah, no way," we tell him. "We're too far. Besides, it's always delayed. We'll be at the Marriott in Mexico before that thing goes."

But maybe it's for some odd combination of intuition and expertise that captains are paid the big bucks, because less than two minutes later, there, with a trail of flame like a giant Roman candle, is the Shuttle, 500 miles away. Up it goes, arcing eastward and disappearing seconds later into the morning, its tail hanging in the still-dark sky like a fiery icicle. The captain snaps a photo, a copy of which he e-mails to me later.

Battle of the Dinosaurs (Summer, 1999)

It's a hot morning at San Juan, and our old DC-8 freighter has just touched down. After rollout along Runway 10, we make the left onto taxiway F to access the cargo ramp. Except there appears to be a sizable chunk of debris along the taxiway edge at the intersection. And it's moving. Er, well, it's crawling.

Turns out it's a 4-foot iguana (Iguanidae Ctenosaurus), and he's looking for a spot to bask. He finds it, naturally, dead center along the yellow taxiway stripe, directly in our way. The animal plops down and is hell-bent not to budge.

So we stop.

"Give him some noise," says the captain, reaching for the thrust levers.

"Do iguanas have ears?" asks the first officer.

"I don't know."

"Well, we can't just run him over."

We more closer, hoping to startle the lizard off. It's not working. He's just under the nose now and we can see him clearly -- the frills of his head, the spikes along his tail. A 15-pound prehistoric lizard standing down a 255,000 pound prehistoric airplane.

"I knew a girl once," I say out loud, "who had a pet iguana. They're vegetarians, you know. Strict herbivores." I'm eating a piece of Tillamook cheese from my breakfast tray. "Her name was Lynn Farrell. She was very pretty. She also had a tattoo of an iguana down her back. I wonder where she is now."

"But can they hear?"

"Probably, sure."

Ground control has noticed us motionless and crackles in. "What's the problem?"

"Do you know if iguanas have ears?" the captain answers.

Two minutes later a yellow pickup comes racing over. Lack of further discussion from the tower gives us the impression this has happened before. The pickup honks, nudges forward, and finally the lizard goes dashing off into the bushes.

Later, on the drive to the hotel, our animated talk of iguanas leads the van driver to ask if we're amateur zoologists.

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