Some Things I Will Miss

I will miss a lot of things about this place. Some things are obvious: friends, my job, our church, the library. I will miss the friendly openness and small town community feeling. I will miss knowing all the 'short cuts' and feeling like I know most of what there is to know about this town.

Other things aren't so obvious. They are the smaller, inconspicuous things that I am afraid I will forget because they don't stick in my mind all the time. Here are a few.


This is the sunset view from my front door. I have seen that sky in every imaginable shade of pink, orange, yellow, purple and blue. I know there will be more sunsets in more places, but I'm going to miss this one.


These are the two trees I can see from my office window. In the spring and summer they are green and lush. In the fall they turn brilliant shades of crimson, scarlet and gold. They always make me smile, as they are among the few truly beautiful trees in this desert.


The kids and I have watched -- and attempted to catch -- frogs, turtles, ducks, dragon flies and fish in and around this pond.


Believe it or not, I will miss these big, green fluff balls. They are what eventually dry up, get ripped out of the ground and make tumbleweeds. They can be pretty huge, too. I dragged one out of the street last week that was well over 4 feet across. They're kind of fun to run over with your car if they aren't huge.


This playground is one of the coolest ever. All the play structures are made from welded rebar and sheet metal. The other end of the playground has an airplane with slides coming out of it. Awesome.



How could one not miss this? It's a Texas-size longhorn skull. Pure Texas class right there, ladies and gentlemen. And yeah, there's a little part of me that will miss it.

There are lots of things I will not miss -- dust storms, constant wind, scorpions and stifling summer heat are a few that come to mind. I will not miss the lack of rain or the brown grass. I will not miss the thick odor of oil wells. At least for a while. Something tells me that I might look back on a few of these things with a sort of fondness, once I've been away from them for a bit.  But for the things I will miss ... I only hope that I will get back here for a visit occasionally.