California Dreamin'

Everything is near the
In&Out Burger

We finally broke free of the East Bay. Kind of kidding, but seriously, Oakland pulled us in and we got the Total Experience. Earthquake, refinery explosion, widespread power outage, wind storm with accompanying fire warnings, hours of traffic, and Max got really sick. But the worst thing was that our car was broken into while parked at an Airbnb and pretty much all of the kids' books, games and souvenirs were stolen, along with M's running kit. At first, we were like ok, it's just stuff and at least they didn't steal our vehicle, because we would have been in a real pickle trying to replace that. Insurance covered the repair, we found someone to do it quickly and we are back on the road. But really, what is life in our family without books and running? If I'm going to be truly honest, this was a terribly sad thing to happen to us because replacing things accumulated through travel or running ultras is pretty much impossible. Laurel just realized last night that this little stuffed unicorn she bought at Girl Scout camp was among the missing objects and holding her while she cried over it, made me cry too.

The good part of the Oakland time was that I got to visit my friend Leah and her family. We met in Phoenix 15 years ago and have continued a long distance friendship mostly through email, but we try to visit each other whenever possible. We last saw each other in Pennsylvania this summer where we brought our families together in a cabin in the woods for the second time. This time we visited at her new house. We went to the beach at Half Moon Bay one day but mostly we did regular stuff together, hanging out with the kids, playgrounds, dishes, walking dogs, and dealing with the unexpected things life sometimes throws at us. Marko was sitting on the couch reading to her dog about 10 minutes after we arrived, and this pretty much sums up the welcoming vibe of Leah and her family. She reminded me how much I needed to take some breaks and then saw to it that I took a walk by myself and invited me to yoga class. She had a family emergency and I watched her kids. We would make great neighbors, if not for the living 3,000 miles apart.

So the past two weeks have been simultaneously awesome and terrible.

We finally got our car back and the Rpod loaded up again and moved down to Carmel. Not very far, but feels momentous because it's not East Bay. Weekends are lovely when M isn't working. He misses out on all the fun stuff during the week and is pretty much tethered to his computer or driving. Working and traveling so much is really difficult, vastly more so than I anticipated. Max is still sick so I'm watching him here at the campground while M has the kids at the beach/aquarium. It's very peaceful and I'm watching cows over the hillside. I totally understand the allure of California. Something about the way the light hits the golden hills, and being on the edge of all these fault lines and coast lines. The cows are all sitting down now and I wonder if it will rain, except I know it won't. Not for months. Maybe they are just enjoying the light, too.