Saturday started out just the same as every Saturday this month. It is the last flight of the week, the return flight from Friday evening's trip to Newark. The plane loads at about four AM, and departure for Elmira is usually before five.

Initially assigned a northerly heading for climbout, my right window held a view of the entire New York metropolitan area and beyond, stretching along the northern coastline of Long Island. Everything was laid out before me in the glow of a billion lights. Farther east, the sky was starting to glow with the first promises of a cloudless dawn.

Actually, the air was not as clear as it had been the morning before, and that was because the weather was a day older, and another disturbance was making its way in from the west. Soon after I turned towards Elmira, the moon was blocked by higher clouds, and I bounced along through lumpy clouds and falling snow. By Wilkes-Barre, the high clouds were behind me and I skimmed just above a solid deck of clouds for the rest of the trip.

It was a full moon, and I was afforded the novelty of actually seeing the weather that I was flying in and around. Night flight has its charms, but cloudscapes are not one of them, and most flights seem little different than sitting in a dark and noisy box. It was thrilling to see the white clouds brightened by the cold light of the moon.

Elmira was covered by the deck of clouds that I had been admiring, and descending through them was a return to night. The moon had been bright, and the dawn had been catching up with me as I flew away from it. Emerging through the bottom of the clouds though, the view of the runway was just as dark as the one I had left more than an hour ago.

I felt satisfied. As I tied the airplane down, the light of day was reaching through the clouds that were forecast to clear in a few hours. A successful work week was complete and it was time to . . . go flying! I left Elmira, stopped at home to change clothes, say hello and goodbye, and continued for Dundee. At work I have a plane that has more dials and buttons than I can keep track of, but at Dundee I have a plane that is delightfully simple.

En route from Newark I had wished I had a camera, but the view from my little airplane as I flew towards Middlesex was far more beautiful. I felt foolish to have forgotten my camera yet again. With a few flocks of southbound geese as company, I was on top of a broken layer of clouds at only 3000 feet. Looking through holes and long rifts in the clouds, the carpet of the Earth was visibly refreshed after the recent rains. The sky was blue, the clouds white and below it all, there was a crisp green.

I have been to Middlesex many times before, and I navigated by the occasional glimpse of the ground below, until I looked down to see the grassy airport neatly centered in a small hole in the cloud. Yet another photograph that I won't have, I mused. An inventory of the shapes and colors of the planes parked below told met that most of the usual crowd was in attendance.

I turned towards the south end of the valley, where there were few clouds, descended, and then flew back under the clouds for a landing. The rains have returned a bit of resilience to the ground, and the longer grass helps make whisper-quiet landings too, but I was happy to have played a part in a perfect touchdown into the midst of friends.

I'm not one to buy things on a whim, and I don't collect souvenirs, but before I left I bought a Middlesex Airport Cafe T-shirt that someone can give to me for Christmas. Summer won't last forever, and when the dark of winter sets in, I will appreciate a reminder of the summers' flights, sights, and the good times we had.

Flying, you see, is not just a job, it is an addiction.