The last I had travelled substantial away from the 4th Corner was way back at the first week of March 2020. I was scheduled to get on a plane Sunday March 1, bound for Kansas City to run a week of training sessions. Foreshadowingly (that's now a word) Kansas City was where I had led my first sessions under the newly bestowed label Technical Trainer - the training department has since been obsolete and I was transitioned into something else. On that Friday word came down that all corporate travel was immediately suspended (the pandemic, d'uh) and explicit permission was required from the highest level of C-Suite executive before proceeding. Against the easier-to-ask-forgiveness instructions of my then "manager" I went ahead and requested (and received) said explicit permission - the submission form letter HR had sent out late in the afternoon helped. While the amount of traffic through Sea-Tac that Sunday was normal it certainly was not upon my return the following Saturday. The term deserted comes to mind as I recall walking through the terminal to the car park shuttle bus. 475-days later I find myself trying to remember how to ride a motorcycle, 400-miles a day, day after day day after day.... and getting in and out of hotel room without forgetting anything.
