My parents are gonna be rolling up here soon.  They’ll stay with me and take some sights in.  Oh, also they’ll help me pack my stuff in the truck because I can’t.   Nice parents, huh?!

Then it’ll be a 1,800 mile drive back to Minneapolis.  Back to where I started out Jan 10th of this year.  When I left that cold snowy evening, did I even entertain the thought that life would bring me full-circle back to Minneapolis?  With a broken foot?  Can’t say I did.

But I’ve always been one to roll with the punches.  Sometimes… no… not sometimes, its a certainity that life will knock you down at some point.  As someone famous… and probably dead said, its not about falling down, but how you get up and dust yourself off thats the big idea, yeah?

Oh yeah, doctor said I could start driving again.  So I drove around the valley.  I drove up and down roads I’d never driven before.  I saw whole new sights I’d never seen before.  And whole new angles to familiar landscapes.   As I watched the clouds go by, my heart broke a bit.  I’d become attached to this little town in a big valley.

I keep telling myself that I’ll be coming back.  This is not by any means my last time here.  But I know that for the rest of my life, I will reflect upon the four months I spent here as truly priceless.  I came here to climb and I discovered so much more about myself than I expected.

But well, its time to turn the pages, time to look ahead to things yet to come.

One more drink please? For old time’s sake.  Just one last round before we stumble off into the night?