Out with Ben and then to New Mexico

January 3, Ben and I drove down to Fort Worth, Texas to go see Ben Folds! Ben had bought the tickets and made all the arrangements on his own and surprised me with the gift on Christmas morning. After all the holiday hoopla, it was nice to drop the boys off at my sister's and have a few quiet hours together on the road.

 It turns out that Fort Worth has an interesting downtown that seemed like it would be fun to explore. But we only had about an hour before dinner and the concert.

 The concert was amazing. Ben Folds is an incredible musician, and when you combine that with a full orchestra of incredible musicians amazing things happen. The performance hall was enormous and the full, deep sound from the orchestra filled the entire hall from floor to ceiling. It was a wonderful reminder of the power of live music!

About a week or so later, I flew to Albuquerque, NM for a week of meetings for work. We've traveled to Abq for meetings before and each time we stay at a Catholic retreat center. It's not fancy, but it's simple and from the windows you can see mountains. The photo below (which doesn't do the mountains justice, like at all...) is what I looked out at while sitting in our meetings! A few roofs, a river valley, the city of Abq and then the mountains. Meetings are more interesting with a good view.

 On our last day, we had time to take a walk in the sunshine before we took off for the airport. It was great to soak up some warm sunshine...

 especially before being confined to small airplanes full of stale air.

Travelling is a good thing, but it certainly is tiring. It's good to be home, with no trips in the near future.