Roswell, Day 4: Homecoming .

 Covid Report.  I'm annoyed.  I really wanted to go back to work tomorrow.  We're down one person anyway (Ben had surgery) and over Thanksgiving week a lot of the students are gone.  But I'm still a bit congested, and when I tested, I'm still positive.

I need to do the adult thing and stay home.  But I'm annoyed.

So our final day of this short trip came.  We had our breakfast, packed up, and gave one final farewell visit to the silo.  Gary wanted to drive us around what used to be Walker Base, so we dropped off the rental car and hopped into his.  It was fun.  When we cruised the old neighborhood I pointed out the house that I thought belonged to the "mean lady."  I remember walking around with my pet rat Squeaky on my shoulder and she said something about my nasty animal.  She had one of those miniature chihuahuas, and I pointed out that my rat was bigger (and nicer) than her dog.  Gary jumped on that  - he's still in correspondence with the people who lived there and is going to ask about the dog.

We drove to our old school, and the swimming pool (still there).  He took us to Dad's old office (when he wasn't at the silos).  It was old oddly nostalgic.

Finally it was time to hit the airport (tiny - only one gate).  A short hop to Dallas/Ft. Worth where I parted with Michael, a few hour wait, and finally the puddle jumper home, landing around 10:00 p.m.

I was expecting to deal with more emotions than I actually had.  I saw people hurrying towards the gate - with people waiting outside of it to greet them - to run, to hug, to ask how the trip was, to help carry luggage.  Once upon a time, that would have been me.  But that was once upon a time, and this is now, and somehow I was oddly more OK with it than I thought I would have been, walking out by myself and across the parking lot to the car.  The drive home was uneventful.  As Gill pointed out, by 10 p.m., people going out have already gone out, and people partying haven't headed back home yet. so there wasn't much traffic (I saw a lot of deer, but fortunately they didn't jump into the road.)

I do wish I had thought to ask Cam (my critter sitter) to have left the kitchen light on so that I didn't come home to a dark house (but there is a security light in the yard at least).  But the cats were happy to see me, and the chickens were fine, and it was good to be home again.

I planned to conclude with some final thoughts about sunrises, sunsets, stars, and dust - but I'm crashing and I think I'll head to bed.  Stupid Covid.