It’s hard to admit that we’ve not been doing anything special since our return from Thailand. Taxes was the big thing. The pile of mail was less owing to more online payments, efficiency of my sister trashing junk mail, and being gone only 3 months. One thing that took more time than usual was overcoming jet lag.  Jumping back into the Durango routine only goes so far when trying to make up for 13 hours of time difference.  Staying up until 9 PM is our primary goal, but we’re still waking at 3 AM for the first 5 or more days.

The only fun item waiting in Durango was a Thunderbolt Display I purchased from Janet while I was gone.  Overkill for sure, but I’ve always coveted a second 27″ monitor and now I get to try one. The biggest benefit besides have two screens of origami screensaver to show off our 20,000-photo library, is that I’ve started editing that photo library.

The only person I know that’s meticulous about organizing his photos is Don Pole, and we’ve never gotten close to his surgical precision. A second display isn’t mandatory to accomplish sorting, editing and trashing photos in your photo library, but it makes it more fun. As of this posting I’ve eliminated 5,000 of 25,000 and probably have another 5K to go.

The other motivation was to put my photo library in iCloud Photo Library, so that I could have all my photos on all my Apple devices.  In Thailand this year I kept wanting to show a particular photo of home or our travels and it wasn’t on my iPad, iPhone or Stanna’s MacBook.  Now they are.

I‘ve also been prepping for a reprise of two separate San Juan Mountain Association talks given last spring: UltraLight Backpacking Gear and Using GaiaGPS. Just talking or a PowerPoint doesn’t cut it for me, so designing displays, and a live demo of what’s in your pack, needed preparation. The display on the left shows shoe weights and that 6# water bottle demonstrates how much 1 Pound extra on your feet feels like on your back.  There are 10 different displays of various gear choices including food choices.  The GaiaGPS smartphone GPS mapping app talk will introduce hikers, bikers and trail riders to the app, using a large screen TV  display of my iPhone so that folks can visualize better than on a 4.7″ screen.

One habit that’s been hard to break is photographing all our meals, so since we’re back in the Southwest here is just one smothered burrito.

And for those wondering about cycling: Spin class has been there for burning calories three times a week and Durango weather was perfect last weekend for a 38-mile ride.

Our 33rd anniversary dinner, thanks to David & Pam’s belatedly-used gift certificate.  Hard not to take that food porn, but the meal was delicious.