Moving On

It’s always exciting to move. There are so many new things to experience, so many new things to get to know. Even the word “move” denotes action and activity, change and motion. But no matter how much I want to go to a new place and how much I disliked an old place, part of me is always sad at the loss. I’ve blogged about this before, so I won’t belabor the issue. It’s just that our impending move is really starting to sink in now, and though I have never felt like I fit in here, in this land with few pubs and an overabundance of exotic flora, there are so many things I will be sad to leave behind.

I will miss:

- wine
It is everywhere, cheap and good. I thought I knew a bit about wine before coming here, but now I have an entirely new depth of appreciation that can only be achieved by touching the landscapes where the grapes are grown, seeing how they differ from each other. There is wine at every public function and in every store. People drink it casually without puritanical hang-ups or snootiness. No matter how much wine flows at a gathering or dinner back east, it can never be part of the culture in this way.

- bicycles
This is particular to Davis to some extent because everyone bikes here, but I see more bikes in general in CA than I ever did back east. I think this is in large part due to the climate. But for whatever reason, I go everywhere on my bike, and I love it!

- climate
It’s one of the things I have most disliked because I’m a guy who likes rain. But I must confess that after 4 years, it will be hard to go back to considering the weather whenever I make plans. It’s nice to be able to plan a BBQ without having to have contingency plans for rain. For nine months out of the year here, it just ain’t gonna rain, so you don’t have to even think about it. We also have really pleasant evenings with low humidity and light breezes that make you want to live on your patio.

- produce
I grew up having vegetables and fruit from my grandparent’s farm. So unlike most kids, my parents rarely had to persuade us to eat our veggies. This was normal for us, and we didn’t even think about it. We just ate them. I’ve always loved produce, but I’ve never had the absolute wealth that is available in CA… all year long. The Davis Farmer’s Market is twice a week, every week, all year. Darling Wife and I cook and eat in ways that we will never be able to replicate back east. :(

- landscape
Again, this is one of those things that I have a love/hate relationship with. The landscape is grand on a scale that is beyond compare. But a person can only be in awe so much before he longs for something more comfortable, more homey, like the rolling green hills and pastures of the mid-Atlantic. I am sick of everything being the hottest, driest, highest, lowest, longest, tallest, biggest, and on, and on. Besides, I only really get to enjoy the landscape when we have visitors or leisure enough to engage with it in a meaningful way, otherwise it becomes an obstacle. The breathtaking mountains are a pain when they add an extra two hours to a short-distance trip, etc. Still, I will miss the cool quiet and timelessness of the redwood forest, the powerful fragility of the miles and miles of coastline, the magnitude and grandeur of the Sierras. And I feel honored to have lived among them.

I am sure this list will grow over the next days and weeks.

On the Road Again

While trying to stay on top of my coursework and plan our upcoming cross-country move, Darling Wife and I are also on a whirlwind tour of California.

A couple of weeks ago, we spent the weekend camping in Pinnacles National Monument. It is not a place I'd recommend during 75% of the year; it is dry, hot, and utterly inhospitable during our long summers and falls. But right now, it is beautiful. Wildflowers were everywhere, and we saw TWO condors! When I was a child, I watched a program about California condors and the frenzied efforts to reverse their declining numbers and belay their impending extinction. At the time, condors were remote and unreal to me. They lived, the 22 that still lived, in the extreme west in areas that existed for me only in old westerns from my grandfather's day. And even today, though their danger of extinction has lessened, they are hardly common. I never thought I'd see one, especially not in the wild. We caught a glimpse of one a few summers back from a shuttle bus at the Grand Canyon, but this was radically different. After a three-mile hike up the sloping side of a mountain, Darling Wife and I broke onto a bare ridge and saw first one, then another condor soaring almost at eye level over the canyon below. The distance obscured the beasts enormous size, the largest of all raptors, but it was still an amazing sight.

Last weekend, we hiked to the broad valley that was the subject of my last post. We took our dogs and had a picnic under an enormous Valley Oak by the side of a pond. The dogs played, happy to be free of their leashes, and we sat on a blanket drinking sauvignon blanc and eating strawberries and hummus. Mmmm.

This weekend, we are going to Death Valley. I'm not sure if there is symbolism to be found in that, give that this weekend is also the Easter holiday, but if so, it is not intentional. I'll let you know how the trip goes next week.