Just a brief jaunt back to the basics

Once you've flown to SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, every subsequent flight seems as inconsequential as a bus ride.
I decided that today, as I sat in the warm sun of DOLORES PARK, after having flown from CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA to DENVER, then on to SAN FRANCISCO.
Other air passengers fretted about possibly missing connections, agonized over gate changes and seemed completely stymied by a general lack of overhead space for carry-on items.
Me, I just sat there and smiled. In a matter of hours, I had gone from a FREEZE WARNING to that HIGHLY REGARDED CALIFORNIA SUNSHINE that you've heard so much about -- and that this California native had almost forgotten! And yet I had thrived on this very sunshine since birth -- for about half my life, I'd reckon.
The actual act of flying to Sydney was a challenge to the senses of perspective, time and space, not to mention taxing on the butt muscles.
Today's journey, in contrast, seemed like a minimal jaunt back to the basics of my past.