Month: August 2019

Gone from cubicle-land. Gone from 24/7 emails. Gone from the long-haul flights, the endless meetings. Gone from all of that, three years ago today. This was me, on the ferry out of Seattle on August 19, 2016, after turning in my laptop, access badges (all four of them), and walking out the door of my last full-time job in high tech. Two years ago, I was on Cape Cod, nursing a broken hand back to health and enjoying daily sunsets on the water. Last year, I was in one of my happy places, paddling on the water in Tennessee and…

Before heading up to the Grand Tetons and a five-day stint of boondocking (camping without any electric or water connections), I spent two nights at a KOA in Dubois, Wyoming, doing errands, using their wifi to finish some work, and stocking up on groceries and gas. First off, the town’s name is pronounced DO-boys, with the accent on “DO”. Of all the ways I thought you could pronounce it, this wasn’t one I’d thought of, but the three ladies at the P.O. all said it that way and they are the local authorities on such things. The KOA has tepees…

The long, straight roads in eastern and central Wyoming are perfect places to do some trainspotting while driving. The last few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of long, long trains going by me as I drove on back roads.  I was driving so I couldn’t count the cars but some went on for 5-7 minutes, me heading north while they headed south.  A few engineers noticed my Subaru and Alto slowing down and snapping pics out the window and gave me a whistle. I waved back and sometimes got a second whistle, as if to acknowlege we were both lonesome…