Axis

Home again for barely a week, then off again. I still haven’t unpacked my gear bag from the last adventure.

But at least some things are clear now. The biggest change precipitated by my Maine trip is probably acceptance of where I am (which has to do with something else entirely). Not that there aren’t thousands of other places to live—Maine was pretty nice, actually—but I have run clean out of room to be an idiot, and here is where we are. Before the last scraps of family inheritances have gone to pay for dental work or motorcycles, it’s time to throw them at a house.

Meanwhile, there’s a scheduled get-away to the Land of Pork and Goodness (Iowa to you). I love to go to Dubuque. It’s such a unique place in its own right, hanging on the bluffs above the Mississippi. There’s a cliff where a railroad train comes out of a tunnel in Wisconsin and shoots right over the bridge! From any overlook above the river, you might see bald eagles or white pelicans. Our hosts have one of those TVs that covers the whole wall. It’s like a happy movie when I’m there. There’s all this food, even tequila for me. The a/c softly hisses. Everything is clean and orderly. No one lacks for anything. You can drop a pair of underwear on the floor and nothing drags it under the bed. A fortress of Clean & Safe & Nice. The anti-Taos, if you will.

Always good to soak that up before heading back to dirt and danger.

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