I’m sitting here in Monk’s Kaffee Pub in Dubuque, Iowa, just a few blocks from the Mississippi River, and I just wanted to let you know, Baker, that I miss you. I was thinking about the corner of Broadway and Ellsworth in Denver just yesterday. All your little shops and restaurants and bars and houses seemed so far away. I couldn’t bop down to Bardo for some ice cream if Sweet Action had closed. I couldn’t walk to Dailey Park. I even miss my landlady’s little candleholder surrounded by four stolid figures.

I liked living in Denver. Although I’d lived in the metro area for nearly three decades, I’d never lived in the city proper. For the first time since I lived in Washington, DC, I could walk just about everywhere I wanted to go.

I got settled there, and now I’m traveling again, and it’s unsettling me. I was feeling really stressed out last night as we couchsurfed (in a very nice bedroom). It wasn’t just the cute dog jumping on me in the middle of the night. It was all the change happening so fast.

The next week will be brutal in terms of driving. We have to get from Dubuque to Vermont by Thursday. After that, we’ll be spending several nights at a time in hotels or with friends. By then, I think the excitement of seeing the East Coast will have overcome my anxiety about finances and health.