Back in the U.S.A.

Tonight I am in Utah en route to two weeks of elk hunting in SW Colorado.  I'm still not sleeping well and sniffling from a student-caused cold I caught two weeks ago.  But tomorrow we will reach our camp at 9000ish feet above sea level.  Friday I will head out with my backpack into a remote section of ground I have been thinking about for three years - the last time we hunted this area.  It'll likely be cold and oxygen-starved - quite different than where I was a week ago.

Early observations on my first few days back in America after being absent for 14 months:

* the cars are really big

* the girls are plastic looking

* materialism is still rampant

* consumption or waste are not on the minds of many people

* this is a car-based society (as opposed to trains in Japan)

* every town over 20,000 people is pretty much the same in its offerings

* there's a lot more support for Barack Obama than I expected - even from conservatives

I will likely be absent from the blog for awhile.