Pop quiz: have you honored your 2011 resolution(s)? Me? My 2012 resolution (like other years) is to make no resolution. Eminently practical, and realistic for most folks, I’m sure. Yes, I can.

Of course, now it’s time for all the journalists to write about the past year in review and predictions for the new. (Why don’t we do that in, say, August? Poor ol’ August. August gets short shrift, for a month that brings Dog Days to a close. Dang! Off topic.)

As a year-end rite, we made the arduous journey east, across much of the continent, from Santa Fe. We crossed the Mississippi. I still think Missouri wins for some of the nation’s finest road signs. Years past, we’ve enjoyed (or been amazed by) a certain highway sign on a road that seems perpetually under construction. As if in invitation, in bright orange background, we see the command, Hit a Worker. (Followed, in a subtler white background, by what we may guess to be consequences.)

This year, traveling the many miles across the Mississippi flood plain, we could see for miles in any direction. Houses are planted on plots a seeming mere six inches to a foot above the fields deep in water. (Cemeteries are rare, of course.) You might imagine my guffaw (almost choking) as we drove past a marker for Mount Level.

We visited a seemingly foreign land, tasted its unique foods, and viewed its native wildlife species. Then we began the drive home. All told, we spent more time on the road than we spent visiting.

We had spent awhile, visiting with folks we see in person maybe once a year. We had viewed their, and they had viewed our, changes with age: a thing unseen through traded emails and phone calls.

Don’t bogart that year, my friend. Pass it over to me.

¿k?