Back from California

We did a delightful romp through the Northern CA area for the past couple of weeks.

Mostly, I totally dug it. Showing the kids the first apartment Dan and I lived in, playing tourist in San Francisco, walking all over the place. We found we had a hard time remembering which road to take where, but a lot of it was where it should be. Some of our favorite restaurants were gone, but replaced with new ones. We saw friends and did all the stuff we used to do with them. The apex of my missing Northern CA was visiting our first house, and finding the neighborhood was just as beautiful and idyllic as I remembered it. We even did a trip up to Tahoe for a family reunion that was about as picturesque as one could want.

However, by the end of the trip, I was ready to go back to the Chicago area and be content. I feel at home here. I guess I will never get used to the dryness of the climate in the Bay Area, or the nasty air that hung over Sacramento so much of the year. Over 800 wildfires broke out over the last weekend we were there, and just driving back to San Jose from Tahoe made my lungs feel seared and my eyes red and irritated. I would hate living in Sacramento and having to breathe that for days on end, or live in parched hills where I would have to worry about fire consuming my neighborhood. Earthquakes, eh, not so bad. Tornadoes are easier for me to deal with though because you can hide from them.

California was wonderful for all the years I lived there--always exciting, always something new, full of possibilities. I learned a lot (much of it the hard way) about how to feel out different cultures and customs and avoid offending. The Bay Area is so packed and so diverse, there may be literally 50 different languages spoken in one neighborhood and no way for anyone to insulate themselves in a "village," so you had to find commonalities and forgive each other's mistakes. It was a great experience.

It was also a mixed blessing that the climate doesn't change there. Nothing can get put off for a rainy day, because that would only be two or three times a year. However, you realize that time seems to pass faster because there are no seasonal cues. I was caught off guard one day trying to remember if it was May or December, that I knew I had to get back to real weather.

The trip was great for reminding me what I lost, but also appreciate what I have gotten back moving back to the midwest.