Alberta, 2022 — Out West, Out of Uniform
In 2022 I went out west to see Dan and Mike. It was my second trip to Alberta that didn’t come with a posting, a kit list or somebody else deciding where I slept.
Covid was still hanging around, even in Alberta, where you’d think the wide open spaces would have talked people out of it. Plenty of folks still had that deer-in-the-headlights look, like the world might end again at any moment and they wanted to be ready to look startled when it did.
A week isn’t enough for a trip like that. Back in the day there were too many places to see and too many friends to check in on, and you always left somebody out. Now, in the 2020s, the list is shorter than it’s ever been. Nobody warns you that’s how the scheduling problem gets solved.
So you go while the list still has names on it.
