All last week, I was in Starkville, MS at Mississippi State University for work. It was a pretty calm week. I honestly felt a little sad on Saturday when I was checking out of my hotel room. It has been my temporary home and I had started feeling like I belonged there. Every now and then, I will go on a week long work travel session. I went to Denver for a week back in March. I’ve also gone to other places for multiple nights at a time. I like the travel and can say that I have gone to more places because of work than I probably ever would on my own volition.

I’ve spent plenty of time in the state of Mississippi, especially when I was in college at West Alabama. It was either go to Meridian which was 30 miles away or make a trip to Tuscaloosa which was 56 miles away. Being poor college kids meant that Meridian was a wise choice as not to require a fill up of gas. If you have to put gas in your car, how were you going to afford other useless things a college kid would want. My land barge made its way to Meridian a few times to have a little fun. There was actually a gay bar in Meridian to the shock of many people. Not really in Meridian, but in the country outskirts of the city. Either way, it was more local than other places we could have found ourselves.

Starkville reminded me a bit of the college town I was in. It was larger, but in the grand scheme of things, it was still in the middle of nowhere. It was like the highway ended and the college appeared.