We’re back in a favorite spot, Cherry Creek State Park in Aurora, CO, with all eight wheels parked on the pink concrete. I’ve spent the day digging through work tasks that fell by the wayside last week, and slurping down all kinds of fluids to fight the cold. Recovery is not far away, thankfully.

Emma enjoys a movie on the laptop, in our bed, on a rainy Sunday morning in Goodland KS  

There was a cold rain in Goodland KS when we left, and it continued occasionally along I-70 through Colorado, leading me to wonder if we would ever escape the rain. These are dry areas, normally. But it was just a reminder of the weather we have finally left behind. Today Aurora has bloomed into sunshine and 82 degrees, without a trace of precipitation in the week’s forecast.

It’s time to regroup a bit. We’ve got more meetings this week before Brett flies home to Florida (to see if his home is still standing after Hurricane Fay). But mostly I’ve got to put things in order, on the business and personal side. For this reason, and to recover comfortably from the cold, I set up the Official World Headquarters of Airstream Life magazine on the queen bed, and parked myself for the day.

One task is to figure out where we are going next. The firm plan only extends to this weekend; after that it’s just a series of vague ideas. Generally speaking we were going to head to southern Colorado and visit some national parks, ending up at Mesa Verde and then moving into Utah. This still sounds good, but work has begun to intrude. I’m starting some new projects (in addition to working on the Winter 2008 magazine), which requires me to spend a lot of time where I have reliable cell phone and Internet access. The timing isn’t good to go wandering around remote parts of Utah.

But I hate to cut the trip short. We are 15 hours drive from home base, and if we head back now it will be a while before we are ready to make the trip back up the Utah. Tough call. I’ll be looking for some compromise plan this week. We might pick just one major national park in Utah, but which one? They’re all great.