And so it begins!

As a reminder, I've been doing some consulting for my old company. They hired my replacement, and the last two weeks I worked daily, onboarding her. In fact, I really like her and am a bit sorry I won't actually get to work with her. But not enough to keep working, of course.

So my contract has ended, and that means I am officially, absolutely not working any more. That very afternoon, I deleted my work email and Slack from all devices (Yay!) and aimed myself in new directions. I've got two trips planned for May, assuming I manage to continue avoiding COVID.

Yesterday I arrived in Denver. I got to play tourist for the weekend, then I'm off to Wyoming. I'm always surprised by how expensive, dry and White it is. There's a very progressive/hippy/alternative vibe that it is much harder to find in DC. 

I went to the city botanical gardens. They did a very good job with plants from arid places. My friend M said I looked like I was on safari in this picture. Good thing the photo didn't show my saddle shoes; that would have ruined the vibe.

Every Japanese garden I have every visited had been lovely.

There were also many cottonwood trees, but I couldn't manage a good picture of them with the seeds blowing on the wind. Cottonwoods release seeds in the spring attached to white, cottony fluff. We had a few on our property when I was growing up, and my parents grew up in a county named for them (shout out to Cottonwood County!).  My father said he remembered small drifts of the cotton fluff at the right time of the year.

And not in the garden, but downtown, I saw this pioneer monument. Its depiction of maternal protection and gun violence really struck me.

And so my really, truly, not working life begins. I have one or two trips planned every month until I leave DC, so stay tuned for lots more.