It's been long enough since I have left this city for any length of time. Four years ago I went to Vermont to go fly fishing. Along the way I made sure to satisfy my curiousity about Thaddeus Kosciusko, brave son of Poland and Revolutionary War hero, which status he won for feats of engineering, and necessitated visting battle sites all the way up the Hudson River valley.

Now I am going to the desert. Literally. If it leaves me with stories worth telling, you'll hear them in a week.