SEATTLE, Washington

The engine and front edge of the wing glow orange with the light of the setting sun. The horizon shines peach and the sky is four shades of blue up toward the heavens. Behind us darkness falls on Eastern America as we speed west, chasing the setting sun. Below us, the high clouds have disappeared for the moment and a deep navy Earth opens up. Dark patches of large lakes have me wondering if it's Minnesota or Manitoba. And that's when I realize that flying's not as fun anymore. There's no longer a channel setting on the armrest that taps you into the cockpit's conversations with the tower. There's no more description of our flight path during the captain's welcome message. And there's no more breaking in mid-flight to announce the lights of Chicago on the right or the Rocky Mountains coming up on the left. Is it all because of "national security"? Have the terrorists taken that from us too? I'd love to ask the pilot upon landing, but I'm afraid he could be suspicious, that federal agents might track me down before I leave the airport.

I suppose it's up to us now to figure out the landscape. As these low, thin clouds now below pass benath us and open to a winding river, I guess it's up to me to determine if it's the Missouri or some tributary in Montana. (Later, I realize it wasn't yet the Missouri because a giant, wide, winding river that appears later clearly is.) I imagine we won't ever be alerted to the Grand Canyon as we were 13 years ago on a flight to LA -- my first view of it. I guess Paula Poundstone's funniest bit is now irrelevant. "Psst ... people on the left. We hate the people on the right."

I love knowing what we're flying over. I love the view that you can't get anywhere else. In a way, it's a $250, two-hour ride (a standard average) or, in this case, a mileage bonus (read: free; earned), five-hour one. I once spent an entire three-hour South Bend-to-Cincinnati-to-Newark flight home for Christmas with my forehead pressed against the window and my head phones hooked into my Walkman playing mix tapes of Christmas music. I gazed upon the lights of Mid-America. I followed the path of a river by the shimmering moonlight reflected in the water like a spotlight. I saw a display of Christmas lights arranged in a star pattern on the roof of a house whose occupants knew they lived beneath the path of the Cincinnati airport.

On the trip back from Florida in February, I picked up our course off the coast of North Carolina. I spotted Norfolk and tracked our progress all the way from Newport News to the Chesapeake Bay and over Southern New Jersey into Philadelphia. I've picked out Atlantic City, the Garden State Parkway, the Turnpike, the Driscoll Bridge, Sandy Hook. I've noticed Great Adventure and its massive empty parking lot and strained my eyes looking for any recognizable landmarks close to my parents' house. I've flown over an empty Giants Stadium and a packed Veterans Stadium on the afternoon of the home opener. I've seen Mt. Rainier and Mauna Kea poke through the clouds and marveled at just how small the buildings of Manhattan look crammed onto that tiny island upon decent into Newark.

I love flying, but it's just not the same anymore.