This trip was getting nowhere.

I’d arrived at the McCarran Las Vegas International Airport around ten o clock AM. I sat and waited with my transportation staff while three other girls got on their planes to go home, while my flight was very last, at one PM. Just my luck, my flight was delayed until four o clock.

So we sat. My staff and I sat by the United Airlines gate and played Egyptian Rat Screw for the next three hours, listened to music, and stopped by the duty-free shops to read magazines.

Finally, I boarded the plane.

It was only supposed to last three and a half hours, but the pilot announced that it would be five hours instead. Great, I thought, Now I’ll be getting home even later.

So I tried to occupy myself. I really did; I played solitaire, wrote in my journal, and tried to finish reading Perks of Being a Wallflower for my 9th grade English class, but I was still bored to tears.

Until about two hours into the flight.

I just so happened to glance out my window when I saw the most magnificent sight I’d ever laid eyes on. A beautiful, bright red and orange sunset was peaking over the Grand Canyon.

This wasn’t your typical movie sunset. It had ribbons of gold and salmon-pink sliding over the canyon, with waves of bright colors that don’t even have names. It truly was the most amazing thing; how a sunset could just stop my breath.

Nobody else stopped what they were doing but me. I kept my eyes fixed on the canyon, wondering why things like that went unnoticed. It was really something; how God could weave such spectacular colors into a single strip of sun mixed into the sky.

“It’s beautiful,” I said aloud. The lanky teenage boy in the baseball cap next to me narrowed his eyes and said,

“What?”

“Nothing.” I went back to my book, but I never stopped thinking about the sunset over Arizona.