50 hours on the road

In the last week, I’ve driven to Fort Collins, New Mexico, Denver, Casper, Lander, Dubois, Casper and Denver and tomorrow Kansas City. Five states, seven beds, one suitcase packed and repacked.

We had enough dough for two houses.

My first Christmas away from home was low key and relaxing. I missed family and tradition, but I like stepping out of that box every once in a while. We baked and decorated gingerbread houses, ate good comfort food and went skiing — my first time in 10 years. A few minutes down the first run and I got my ski legs back.

I reported two outdoors stories for features on Monday and Tuesday — ice skating and snowshoeing — that took me to Lander and Dubois. Josh came with and took photos. Ice skating took a little longer to adjust to (it had also been 10 years since the last time I’d gone.) The packed snow wasn’t ideal for snowshoeing, but it was still a blast and made me think about buying a pair.

Snowshoeing in the Shoshone National Forest

Writing about something besides schools was refreshing. I’m lucky to work where outdoors stories are valued, where I can ask to go snowshoeing in northwest Wyoming and they say yes.

Wednesday was an office day. I thought I was going to get the shakes sitting in a chair for more than an hour at a time. After work, we headed south again. This time the destination is Kansas City for New Year’s Eve.