Barring something unexpected or unplanned over the next several weeks, Marcia and I made our final landing at Des Moines International Airport yesterday, back in Iowa after a week-plus in Nevada and Arizona. We’ve spent a lot of time in those DSM halls and concourses since 2011, and I can’t say that I will miss them in the least. Come November, I will also appreciate again flying out of cities where the word “International” in the local airport name actually means that you can get to a foreign country on a non-stop basis, which is not the case from Des Moines. I suppose there must have been a flight to Cancun or Toronto available at some point in the past, and they never bothered fixing the name after such service ceased. Meh.

As reported earlier, here and here, the trip west was wonderful, as was spending time with John and Katelin, and we’re so so SO looking forward to being out that way full time. Beyond the beautiful countryside and rich cultures of the region, it felt good to just be in places where most people are taking basic common-sense health protections (e.g. masks, social distancing, limits on number of people in enclosed spaces, etc.) seriously, and where the State governments are not engaging in macro-level evil political idiocy like this and this. Ugh!

I do appreciate that regular readers here may be tiring of my rants on how much I’m not enjoying Iowa lately, but it’s hard not to express those sentiments, given how overwhelmingly bad the neighborhood attitudes and political leadership are on life-and-death matters here in the state and city where we still live, for now. It eats at us. It’s tragic. We want to be done with it, though we know our departure won’t in any way alleviate the suffering of so many Iowans at the hands of their inept “governing” cabal of intolerant, anti-science theocrats and their big corporate enablers. Oh well. I’ll try to minimize such sentiments here over the weeks that remain for us in Iowa, but rest assured, they will continue to percolate below the published surface.

And now, having spent more words than I probably should on those matters, I suppose looking at pretty pictures might be a preferable option, for me and for you alike. Click on the image below, taken at Chimney Rock in Sedona, for our trip gallery, should you be so inclined. I’ll leave it to readers’ discretion as to whether you see a lens anomaly there in the image, or visual evidence of a Sedona Vortex in action. Either way, I like the shot, as it captures the magic of the region (literal and/or figurative) well. We are planning one more out of state trip (driving over to Northwestern Illinois) before our move, so maybe I’ll have one final Midwestern gallery before the pictures start looking like this full-time in November. Have I mentioned how eager I am for that?