As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes." After a lot of thought, I decided to return to the U.S. in December. This will probably drive this blog's glamor quotient way down, but I'm fighting back by keeping a lookout for beautiful/interesting/unusual things back in the Midwest. For one thing, you don't have to travel to the mountains to see beautiful snow. As an added bonus, you can be assured of having the chance to work on your biceps at least once a week when you remove the beautiful snow from wherever you park your car. Good stuff!
Another unexpected perk is the people. Anyone from the Midwest can tell you that we like to think of ourselves as home to the friendliest, most polite Americans you can find. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this, but it's true most people here are pretty darn pleasant. In a big city, so many parts of daily life-- driving, parking, public transit, doing laundry, running errands--are kind of a pain that a constant grouchy mood settles over the residents. Small cities in the Midwest are just the opposite; they may not be glitzy, but everything (at least logistically ) is easy, and it affects people's outlook. I recently took a day trip to Cincinnati with my family. When we reached our destination, another car whipped into the parking spot beside us--the same car that had been behind us for the last mile or so. The driver rolled his window down and leaned toward us. "Road rage?" wondered my father, but no. "Are you folks lost?" the other driver hollered. "I saw you had an out-of-state license plate, and you didn't seem real sure of where you were going, so I just thought I'd check." We reassured him that we knew where we were, and he grinned, waved, rolled up his window and drove away.
It's good to be back.