Like the wonderful time I spent on walks with my mom, and pushing fully laden flat beds up Costco's parking-lot hill to equip her truck for a job on the Salt Flats...hanging out at home with my youngest sister and her adorable (and growing) family...meeting my sister Shaun's new husband (a winner for sure)...and all of us preparing home-made pasta with home-grown sauce fixin's, and playing board games together around the dining room table...board games created and published by my incredibly talented brother-in-law Ryan (find and purchase them on Amazon, or at Red Raven Games).
I didn't tell you about looking at Saturn through a borrowed C-8, seeing old SLAS friends at Denny's and Harmon's, or staring at the enormously bright double rainbow that shone above the mountain foothills during an evening rainstorm in the final few hours of my stay.
I didn't even mention the drive up to Brighton with Mal and her two kids...we spent a lovely hour strolling around Silver Lake...watching the ducks, admiring (and in Zoe's case tasting) the pretty rocks, and saying hello to Mickey Mouse on Mount Millicent...now, why in the world didn't I take any pictures of that?
I didn't mention that I missed seeing all my old music buddies...wished I could've spent a day or two more with Dad to visit Grandpa Ricks in Idaho...couldn't squeeze in a visit to the Salt Flats...or Antelope Island...or Timpanogos...or any one of a thousand other sites around the state...
...sigh...
I took the red-eye back to Cleveland, stepped out into another hot and muggy Ohio sunday, and puttered around at home till Rob returned from Poland later that evening. After dinner he pulled out his phone and showed me all the pictures he'd taken in Warsaw: the city, conference sites, and a few of the famous physicists with whom he'd shared the week. I blushed as he pulled out a gift...a gorgeous amber necklace...just my style.
Real life has descended again...and to be sure, there's lots of good in it as well. The long-overdue visit to Utah gave me a shot of much-needed vigor, and I hope it doesn't take me quite so long to muster a future return. In the meantime, I'll keep looking for ways to discover the best in what's around me here and now. Thank goodness for those fireflies! And BRAS, Oasis, baby groundhogs, fields of daisies, the metroparks, fresh chévre, backyard deer (and baby deer too!), free Oberlin Conservatory concerts, cardinals, goldfinches, bluebirds, orioles, the Ritchie Ledges (I should write a post about them soon), full moon walks at the Wellington Reservation, early-morning ground fog, spring peepers, the Cleveland Orchestra, albino squirrels...and all the other cute little squirrels and chipmunks and bunnies for that matter...
Ok, I'm out of breath. But I think you get the idea.
Thank you again to those who enabled my Utah visit, and all the rest of you that helped make it so memorable.
I couldn't agree more! It was a great time!
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