what a long strange trip it's been

Tonight is my last night for the foreseeable future in my bed in ye olde Iowa. Tomorrow I'm driving up to my brother's town, which is 4.5 hours away - which means I should go to bed so that I can load my car in the morning and do all the other tings that I had intended to do today.

But today was a great last day. I got up, made some iced coffee, and sat on the back porch, where I meditated and then journaled. It was lovely, and while I am looking forward to having my own back patio again, I will miss the pond and the rolling green fields (but I will not miss the flies...Colorado's bug population is practically nonexistent compared to Iowa's). Then I spent most of the rest of the day taking care of a variety of tings around the house, including assessing the growing number of chairs in the downstairs living room (we collect chairs like some people collect thimbles or magnets, although chairs take up much more space). I also did a bit of photo sorting, although not enough; I will have to dump everything into boxes tomorrow, but it's generally in much better shape than when I started and the remaining stuff doesn't include quite so many unknowns.

Somewhere in there, I packed my suitcase, cleaned out the downstairs fridge, tossed a bunch of food and beverages that were in need of tossing, helped Mom organize some stuff that will eventually go to the secondhand store, etc. And I took a bunch of empty boxes and some trash into town, where I made good use of my dad's dumpster. My trash disposal in Denver is pretty great, but it isn't a whole dumpster to call my own, so there are advantages to being here.

For supper, we went into town and had Mexican food - it still feels v. strange to eat in a restaurant, and I am not inclined to do it in Denver, but the Mexican restaurant was pretty quite and so the distancing felt adequate. And after you get a 20oz margarita for $5, distancing doesn't seem so important anymore anyway (jk, wear a mask and wash your hands). But dinner was super tasty, and after we ate we had plenty of time to drive around the backroads some more. We went back down some roads we went down yesterday (including passing through Warsaw again, which is a town that no longer exists) and ended up in Powersville, which is a bustling metropolis in Missouri of approximately 80 people. It was an entertaining excursion, even if it kept me from getting things done....but after stuffing myself full of fajitas and a margarita, I probably wouldn't have gotten anything done anyway.

And now I really should go to bed so that I can get out of here in reasonable time tomorrow - goodnight!