Well, I was in the middle of writing an update a couple of days ago when I had a program crash, so I guess I’ll get started again, although I might end up writing about something completely different, since I’m now in the Billings airport, en route to Washington, DC. There’s no free wireless access here, so by the time you read this I’ll have probably landed in Denver (if not arrived in DC altogether), but I’ll probably work on it through the day, posting additions at the bottom of the page.

I made it back to Montana on Tuesday, and while it’s been nice to be back with Lorie and see her folks again, I’ve been missing everyone I met at Jentel, and wondering how they’re readjusting to post-residency life. I’m going through some art-making withdrawal symptoms, I think! I realized that both Tuesday and yesterday were the first days in the month that I hadn’t done some sort of art-making, so I’ll have be sure to take some time today to do some drawing, even if it’s just doodling on the airplane. I’m traveling light today, but I opted to bring some art supplies, so if you’re curious about what can and cannot travel through airport security in a carry-on, today’s experience indicates that I had no trouble with a variety of pencils, or some watercolor paints (dried into a palette, that is, not wet in tubes). I put the gum eraser and the waterbrush into my “liquids baggie”, but no one asked about those, and no one seemed to take issue with the small pencil sharpener I had either. Of course, I didn’t point out these items, so we’ll see if they take issue with them during my return journey next week.

This will be a personal trip to Washington, to visit friends with Lorie, whom we haven’t seen since this past summer at our wedding. Adam & Lily have grown up jobs now (and a dog!), so they invited us out to see them, and we’re taking them up on the offer. I think we’ll be in town for a good season: I hear the cherry blossoms should be in full swing during our visit, and we’ll be there for some over all pleasant weather, so we’re looking forward to it as a sort of early summer.

The weather here in Montana (and Wyoming last week) has been great the past several days. I spotted robins on Tuesday, and crocus flowers are starting to bloom in Bridger, so it seems we’re fully in the spring season now… although I wouldn’t be surprised to see more snow and cold weather. Things have simply “woken up” this week. Smells are returning, and there’s this instinctive part of my brain that is telling me that spring has arrived. And green grass is showing up! It’s not terribly common yet, but you can find it poking through here and there.

Alright, we’re getting toward boarding time, so I had better get packed up and ready to go.

UPDATE: We’ve arrived in Washington, DC! I wasn’t able to get this posted in Denver, in part because we were only there for about twenty minutes before we caught our next flight, and when I was trying to upload, it was creeping along at 1992 speeds, so it wasn’t actually able to finish in the ten minutes we were sitting still. Anyway, let me know if you have big suggestions for what we should see while we’re here. We’ll be hitting the monuments and museums (and not all of them… there’s a ton, and I don’t think we’d be able to see them all with two weeks), but we’re also interested in smaller hole-in-the-wall sorts of things too.