Sunday morning, Des Moines

Cam's in the shower, Adam's at the Y, and I'm waiting for someone to be clean and/or present enough to go get bagels with me. My last Iowa morning for a while...

Here, I slip so easily into the life that was mine: surrounded by friends but solitary still, directing the course of my days according to my own whims. Yesterday morning I drove down from Madison (and missed my favorite stretch of 151, between Platteville and Dickeyville, under construction!), had lunch with Jamie at the Depot, coffee with Adam at Saint's Rest, ran into Mark Baechtel and Jean Ketter and talked to them, went out to Rock Creek with Zeke and hiked down to the dam (heavy and full this year), and then moseyed through Newton on my way to Des Moines, where I sat in a ballpark with the good people of Des Moines and enjoyed the high drama of semi-pro baseball -- even though Cam didn't play much -- as the evening cooled and the lights came on.

This is my Iowa life. As it ever was.

And oh, how I hate to leave. Which is not to say that I'm not eager to get back to Albuquerque -- I am -- but simply that these people are too significant to me to be replaced, and this land too much a part of me to not feel like home.