A common refrain from my mother is that “no grass grows under your feet, Steve.”

Another fact is that the tread on my shoes is frequently well worn. For this reason, I often feel a bit of trepidation when I am descending steep hillsides.

This is what I was feeling when I heard a resounding click and realized the door I stepped through was now locked.

Behind me, Fortress Ehrenbreitstein.

Ahead, a steep slope downwards on a warm summer’s day.

That’s right, dear readers. It’s the time you’ve all been waiting for. Welcome back kind humans to my third annual Eurovision first impressions blog post!

Up for discussion are forty songs from forty countries. Armenia and Montenegro have returned to the competition after absences, whist Russia was barred from competing due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

As for the writeup itself, it’s a little different because I have company.

Joining me is good friend, long time Eurovision fan, and bop-lover Chelsea, whose comments can be distinguished from my own by the presence of a slightly yellow background. (Mine get “salmon.”)

Since we’re very different people, with different tastes and writing styles, this livens things up considerably.

After somehow exercising the will-power to avoid listening to any of these songs, we sat down to listen to each and every one… together. All the way through.

If you remember what was going on last time (which seeing as it’s been a little more than a year since my post in this series on 2018 West European travel you probably don’t), I had just arrived at a sudden and startling realization.

I had forgotten that Saturday was a day, and had no plans and no reservations. Everything that could be booked for one night in the country of Belgium (on a sunny weekend in the middle of August) was booked.

And that’s why I ended up spending the day in Köln, a place between other places I was visiting anyway.

Hello, friends!

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Go West, Young Lad in which our intrepid narrator, “Steve” makes their way from Pennsylvania to Seattle, alone in a station wagon.

Last time, “Steve” did probably a solid 500 miles of driving in a single day. This time “Steve” decides it’s time for some R&R.

Except, for this “Steve” character, R&R actually means… climbing up a mountain.

Mom, you are welcome to skip reading this one.

Anyone else, read on.

Waking up in the Black Hills, I could already feel the throngs of tourists encroaching.

I opted to skip stopping at Mt. Rushmore, and bought a coffee and bagel in the highly patriotic town of Keystone. Neither were stellar, but they were both adequate insofar as things inside my belly go.

Onward, I drove for two-ish hours into Wyoming, and onto my first destination, a certain famous butte.

What better way to celebrate “Presidents’ Day,” a U.S. Holiday, and apparently a day off from work than to hike up a trail named after a U.S. President?

Little Si was my choice for a first post-COVID hike.

Doing a bunch of hiking, then lazing around ill, and then trying not to push myself too meant that this was the first post-COVID mountain I’d climb, and I’d say it was a good choice.

It was fairly short, fairly moderate (though it has some steep and rocky sections), and.. only fairly crowded on this particular drizzly Saturday in February. I had thought about going elsewhere, but I had hoped the weather conditions would help ensure that the hike would be less crowded.