Last weekend, the family and I went up to Denton for a few days. I had a consulting contract, and Kathy was looking forward to visiting with some of our old friends from up that way. We stayed at a Best Western which had just opened, and which still had some bugs to work out. Notably, the cleaning crew left our door wide open all day, the staff only answered the front desk phone about 50% of the time, they had trouble authenticating credit cards, and the power went out for about 90 minutes on Sunday morning. (Admittedly, the last item was probably not their fault, but it had already become enough of a comedy of errors by that point to just add to the effect.)

In any case, we were able to squeeze some good visits with a number of dear friends in, though I’m afraid we missed several others I wish we had been able to see. (Sorry Pierces, Morrises, Leaheys, Hugheys, and others!) It was interesting to be back in Denton again after a year’s absence. The experience was closely akin to that you get when you go back to visit the parents after having been away at college for a year, and find lots of tiny, but cumulatively unsettling, changes about the old homestead. But the trip as a whole was quite enjoyable, though enough of a working holiday that we were immediately ready for a weekend after the weekend.