After a combined total of 55 years in Rochester, we sold our house, a third of our belongings, and literally stuffed the rest in a storage unit and hit the road in search of a milder climate.
For two months Beth has been crying, reminiscing, and saying goodbye to all the people in our communities all the while eagerly anticipating the move! Since then, we have spent three weeks with very giving and hospitable relatives in the mid-west with absolutely freezing temperatures. (Is the universe telling us we will always be somewhere cold, or that we are doing the right thing?) This was followed by a week in Moab, Utah before heading to Northern California and really starting the hard work of finding a new home.
So now you are asking why Moab? Relatively random and definitely not part of our long term community search, mostly because it is very small and isolated. It looked like we could be outdoors and possibly visit a couple of national parks. The landscape is incredibly beautiful and dramatic! It is all about the light here; different every moment but striking at all times. Every time you turn a corner, the difference is overwhelming. The landscape is as dramatic as some teenagers. In the desert, you hike through layers of rocks of different colors, then red rocks with black areas (called desert varnish) that seem painted on with some drips, then it opens up to red sand, red rocks, scrubby trees and cacti. Then you turn a corner and all you see are what looks like tan sand hills like enormous sand castles, but it is solid rock.
Our first hike was a spontaneous find after looking at petroglyphs outside town on some very high cliffs – including people that looked like paper doll cutouts, people with shields, and many animals (including one large black bear).
We had noticed a trailhead for mountain bikes called Poison Spider, stopped there and saw a hiking trail at the same spot. So we decided to hike to an arch called Longbow Arch. It was about 38 degrees at the time but with the sun shining; it felt like it was in the 40’s. Chris was kind of skeptical about heading off the main trail a little bit to see the dinosaur tracks but agreed to do it, and then we come to a rock in front of us about 5 feet off the ground that has footprints of a dinosaur in the rock! The incredible footprints were slightly bigger than my hand.
Whenever we walk out of our cozy suite (possibly built for uranium miners or engineers in the 50’s), we see the mountains and hills and mesas everywhere. Right now they are red and green and tan, and parts are dusted with white snow. Nothing is blooming right now but you can see dry flowers and juniper berries on the cacti, bushes and trees.
Our one bedroom suite is in a building with three others. Ours is Suite M, with O, A and B in a line next to us. The fenced hot tub is outside in the back and felt wonderful late yesterday afternoon as we watched the clouds on the horizon turn from apricot to peach to pink to gray as the sun set. The town has a main street that goes through it with 4 or 5 lanes, most closed off now for construction. Main Street is a hodgepodge of shops, markets, hotels, etc. The streets are extremely wide with parking spaces everywhere. I thought these wide streets were because this small town fills with tourists in the summer but it is because Brigham Young believed that towns and cities should be designed so that the farmer could turn around his teams of 18 oxen, horses, and carriages around. It is easy to imagine this place during the summer with huge crowds, cars everywhere, traffic inching forward or stopped altogether, with all the stores, restaurants and bars open. We are pretty happy with no crowds. Chris was able to take this week as vacation so our pace is pretty slow.
View from the Rim Trail at Dead Horse Point State ParkOn the second day, we hiked at Dead Horse Point State Park, an area that legend says was where cowboys in the early 1800’s drove a herd of feral horses. There is a spit of land that you walk to over a narrow land bridge. Evidently these cowboys fenced off the land bridge, took the horses they wanted and left the rest to die. Very grim. But the magnificent vertical stone walls lead down to canyons carved by water and ice. Again there are rocks of all colors with the Colorado River at the bottom. It looked a little like a photo our daughter took of Horseshoe Bend in the Grand Canyon. On our 4 mile hike along the desert rim of a huge canyon, the temperature was 36 degrees but it felt like it was in the 40’s.
We also spent a couple of peaceful days in Arches National Park hiking to various arches.
Our last day in Moab was spent in Canyonlands where we saw the sun rise through Mesa Arch and hiked to a kiva (ancient ceremonial structure) on False Kiva Trail.
Our time in Moab was a little cooler than we like but the sun allowed us to get outside every day for more than a couple hours! We left for Grass Valley, CA on Sunday, and go to Redding, CA on February 1st.
We miss you, friends and family, and hope you are all thriving! A funny story for all you parents out there; on January 24th, in the early morning, there was an earthquake centered near Kodiak, Alaska. One of our daughters is currently working outside Girdwood, Alaska. Poor Chris woke up at 4 am, and looked at the news and saw a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that might trigger a tsunami. He immediately began searching for more, and shared with me when I woke up momentarily a few minutes later. So then there were two! Chris texted Ilana who of course was sleeping, but the two of us were googling like crazy, pulling up maps, warnings, determining distances between the quake and our daughter, between the coast and our daughter, etc. Chris went to sleep at some point, and I was up until the tsunami warning was taken down. Some things never change no matter where you are!
(Credit for the post heading goes to my dear friend Lisa at Paychex.)