Editor’s Note: Yesterday, we began Jay Nordlinger’s latest journal, on points east and west: New Hampshire, Colorado, Seattle, and Alaska. The journal concludes today.

On the other side of the tracks in Colorado Springs, there is a bail-bonds establishment. In fact, there are two. I didn’t know they really existed, at least anymore. I thought they were the stuff of old television shows and movies.

Do you remember The Bad News Bears? That Little League team was sponsored by Chico’s Bail Bonds.

Here in Colorado Springs, one of the establishments has a sign that says, We Support Our Troops. Military and Senior Discounts.

I’ll be damned.

‐Colorado Springs has Ann Arborish aspects — I’m from that Michigan town — but, from what I hear, Boulder is really the Ann Arbor of Colorado.

‐There have always been lesbian couples on the street — certainly in Ann Arbor (and other Ann Arbors). But their number seems to have grown a great deal.

I say this without judgment, by the way. I am reporting (which some people don’t get or like).

‐The whole world is tattooed. The whole world.

‐Here in Colorado Springs, there is a statue of a dancing couple. It turns. Very nice.

‐There is also a statue of William Seymour, who lived from 1843 to 1920. He, says the plaque,

is representative of those known as the “invisible people of the Pikes Peak Region” — black American pioneers whose contributions to the growth and development of this area have been largely unrecognized. It is to these persevering individuals that this sculpture . . . is dedicated.

Good.

‐This week, at least, the days in Colorado Springs are hot, and the nights are cool. Really nice.

‐A train whistle in the night is a beautiful thing. A “haunting” sound, to use the cliché. An “evocative” sound, to use another. In generations past, a train whistle spoke to young people of going away.

‐A hotel marquee says, Smile, It’s Summertime. Not a bad reminder.

‐Homes in a trailer park have a wonderful view of the mountains — better than some of the expensive houses have. Which is kind of nice.

‐One shop is called “Westside Boot & Shoe Repair.” I can’t help noticing that the “boot” comes first. (Very Western, in my mind.)

‐The Broadmoor, the famous golf resort, is here. Do you know its significance to recent American political history? The Broadmoor was the site of George W. Bush’s 40th-birthday party — the party after which he resolved to stop drinking and get his life in order.

(I like the phrase he has long used: Alcohol was “competing for my attention.”)

‐Some people don’t look like real people but actors placed on the street, for the benefit of visitors. For instance, there is a skinny old guy with long, scraggly hair — gray and white — and a goatee. He is wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a white cowboy hat.

He’s really real, not an actor? Yes.

‐Two women are talking. One says about her son, “I look forward to the time he’s interested in girls. Then he’ll start washing his face, brushing his teeth, and combing his hair.”

‐There are a lot of bums in town. I think of Santa Monica. As many as there? No, but plenty.

‐My face lights up at a marquee, outside a school: Palmer High School, “Home of the Terrors.” Heh.

Nearby is a statue — an equestrian statue — of General William Jackson Palmer (1836-1909).

‐They let a school call themselves the Terrors? Not, like, the Daffodils?

‐Nearing the Denver airport, I see a Peña Boulevard. Uh-oh. Named after the Clinton cabinet secretary (and former Denver mayor)? Yup.

‐Inside the airport is Elway’s — a restaurant owned (I guess) by John Elway, the former Bronco great (and eternal Bronco great, I should say). For dessert is a ding dong, like the Hostess product — but a homemade one, a gourmet one. It is inspired and heavenly.

I tell the waitress — the beautiful, charming Oksana, from Belarus — “You should do a Twinkie!” An American to her fingertips, she answers, “Right? Totally.”

‐Seattle! It reminds me of Ann Arbor — a big, beautiful, Pacific Northwest Ann Arbor. The clipboard people (Left activists). The lesbian couples. The crunchies, the druggies, the healthies. I am virtually homesick.

‐I’m interested, and pleased, to see Gerard Schwarz Place (outside the concert hall). (Schwarz is the trumpeter-turned-conductor who for 25 years directed the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.)

‐A T-shirt says “U Dub,” for the University of Washington. Which makes me think of West Virginia — where West Virginia University is known as Dub V U.

‐So, Sitka? Sitka, Alaska? You fly into Rocky Gutierrez Airport. Who was he? I Google: to find that he was mayor of the town.

A helluva name, Rocky Gutierrez.

‐Kind of a pity that Mike Ditka didn’t grow up in this town: “Ditka from Sitka.” Totally badass (which he is anyway).

‐With Kevin Williamson and other worthies, I go for a whale-watching cruise, which lasts three hours. A three-hour tour. Hey, what’s that from?

(For the benefit of foreigners — here you go.)

‐My favorite T-shirt in Sitka: There’s No Ho Like a Coho. (This is Salmon Country, of course.)

‐At dinner one night, I sit with a couple named Tillinghast. And a couple named Dye.

Two great names in golf-course design (A. W. Tillinghast and Pete Dye). What are the odds? (Mathematicians and similarly clever folk could tell me.)

‐An eye surgeon tells me that he made more money in 1980 than he has made in the last many years. He says that he is basically living off the money he earned then. For years, he has been working pro bono, essentially. “The medical profession is shot,” he says.

‐Never before had I thought about the name Sawyer — you know, Tom Sawyer, Becky Sawyer, Diane Sawyer . . . But then I attended the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan.

When the lumberjacks were starting a chopping competition, the emcee said, “Axmen, ready!” When they were starting a sawing competition, the emcee said, “Sawyers, ready!”

I’ll be damned. Who knew? Am I the last?

‐Some people say “sawyer” as the word is spelled. Most people, I think, say it as I do: “soiyer.”

‐Hard by the Seattle airport, I take note of a shop: La Raza Auto Sales. I smile a bit, inwardly.

‐The Seattle airport features something I have never seen before, or heard before — in a U.S. airport, that is: announcements given in both English and Chinese. (No Spanish, by the way.)

‐Just before we board — there are a lot of National Review folk on this flight — a young man stops Charlie Cooke and says, “Are you Charlie?” Charlie says, “Yes.” The young man says, “I love you. I’m reading your book. You’re a genius.”

Such a happy note to end a trip on. Thanks for joining me on these excursions, dear readers, and I’ll catch you soon.