It has been a whole year since we were in the middle of the BKR and took a week off to visit west Texas. And it has been nearly as long that this post has been in my blog’s drafts folder awaiting completion. I don’t know why I didn’t ever finish it in the beginning, but I do know why I didn’t for the last 6 months or so, out of sight is out of mind. On the site’s backend admin page there was a spot that listed your drafts front and center when you logged in, but on one of the updates to the WordPress software that item for some reason disappeared. I recently discovered this during another update and now the drafts are listed again. Anyway…
Whenever I go on a big vacation I try and send back a postcard to each of my co-workers along the way to let them know I’m having a good time not at work while they are having a not so good time at work. This time when I mailed out the 6 cards, instead of writing something different on each card as I went, I took a blurb from the Big Bend National Park website and an explanation as to why the cards all came from the same spot this time, divided them into 6 somewhat equal chunks, one for each postcard and sent them off. I was hoping they would get the card, read the partial phrase, scratch their heads, compare notes and then put the cards together like a big jigsaw puzzle and marvel in my creativity. I put a #1 at the bottom of the card that had the beginning of the phrase to get them started.
[spoiler]No one comes to Big Bend by accident and most would say it is a big effort just • to get here. Once here, many decide that it is just big enough for them to want • to stay for a lifetime. Big Bend National Park encompasses over 800,000 • acres. You could stay forever and not see every nook and cranny. It’s a little • piece of paradise that most are unaware of. This is one of the least visited • parks in our National Park system. So even the solitude and the quiet are big here.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]We usually don’t have any • trouble finding postcards from all • the neat sights we see • on vacation, but Texas proved • the exception, so everyone gets • one from the same place.
[/spoiler]So much for curiosity and/or teamwork, each person got their card, looked at the pretty front, read the back, wondered if I might have been tired, drunk or just plain crazy from the heat, and pinned the postcard to their cubical wall. It wasn’t until I got back, gathered everyone’s cards together and showed them what I had done that they went, “Ahhhh.”
This year I may buy a post card, write out an individual sentiment on it, then cut it into 16 pieces, throw that into an envelope and mail it to them. Oooh, I just had an even better idea, but I don’t want to spoil it here…