Prairie dogs

The Denver Federal Center is a former WWII ordnance plant to the west of Denver proper, and has a fair amount of open space mixed with a variety of buildings built and/or used by a number of government agencies. It also serves as a wildlife haven: there's a resident population of Canada geese (a nuisance, mostly, as they scatter goose poop over all the walking surfaces), other birds, and a colony of cottontail rabbits lives near the building where I'm most often working.

What I don't remember until recently is the prairie dog town near Gate 2--we walked through it several days this week when going to lunch at the strip of stores just outside the gate. There are hills on either side of the 4-lane divided road (and I'm guessing tunnels connecting those hills running underneath), some of them within a couple of feet of the sidewalk or street. And on nice sunny days, most hills have a resident prairie dog sitting there watching the world go by, completely undisturbed by the human presence so close.

I really wish I'd had a camera with me on Wednesday. On the slopes of one hill was a prairie dog, completely flattened on his belly. He almost looked dead--but no, he was just basking. Only the eyes blinked at us as we stopped to look at him. Must try to remember to take the camera to lunch when I go back in June.

Travel talk therapy

When I got to my seat on the plane last night, and a woman was already seated in the window of the row behind me. As I got settled, her seatmate appeared. Within 60 seconds:

• she warned him that she had barfed on her flight out
  
• he let her know he'd had gastric bypass surgery, and had lost 116 pounds (with 85 to go)
  
• she told him she'd had breast reduction surgery
  
• they'd exchanged information on hometowns, current residences, and number and ages of children
  
• he'd promised to clean up after her if she was airsick
  

A couple of minutes later, another traveller appeared and determined that the woman should actually have been seated next to me. I'm so glad they agreed to swap seats--I'd have hated to see this conversation broken up.

And my Bose noise-reduction headphones worked like a charm. <g> I listend to Paladin of Souls for most of the flight.