Being Home on the Road

Farewell, California...

Copyright © 2018

by Ralph F. Couey

"I will never lose the love for arriving,

but I'm born to leave."

--Charlotte Eriksson

It was a warm, sunny day, like nearly all of the 91 days we spent in California.  We had gone through the travail of packing up the car, checking out of the hotel, and now we pointed the car's nose eastward.  The approach to that day was accompanied by a sense of unreality born out of the daily routine that had been ours.  We knew that the end of our stay was nearing, that we would leave the marvelous Mediterranean weather for far colder climes.  But somehow, even as we headed for I-15, we still couldn't quite grasp it.

Our life now is a succession of contracts, thirteen weeks in one place, then hitting the road for another.  We sold our home in Virginia, and while we use our daughter's home in Aurora as a home base of sorts, at this point there isn't really any place we could call home.  But that's how we like it.  Cheryl has a kind of stopwatch inside of her with regards to her job.  When the contract is up, so is her patience for the often stodgy bureaucracy that is the modern American hospital.  So it is with a kind of relief that she can pick up and leave without looking back, pushing on to the next adventure.  Since we don't have anyplace to call home, we don't get homesick.  We make friends and have fun, but are still able to take off without any emotional strands tugging at our hearts.



We take memories from each place we go, for sure.  Colorado (once you get acclimated to the altitude) is a place of supreme majestic beauty, especially during the winter.  Arizona in the summer was at times hard to take, but the desert has its own brand of majesty.  California was all pastels and sunsets, along with the peculiar joy of walking on the beach wearing shorts and t-shirt in the week before Christmas.  Snippets of particular memories stay in the mind and heart.  For me, hiking the foothills of the Rockies, and the stark, rock and sand massifs of Southern Arizona.  While I did hike the San Gabriels in California, there is another memory that I will treasure.

It was the routine to take Cheryl to work, and then return to pick her up in the afternoon.  Providentially, there was a city park just across the street from the hospital, and I fell into the habit of arriving there about an hour or so before her quitting time.  I would go sit under the trees and write.  There was a sense of peaceful solitude, and the warmth of the air and gentle breezes all worked to unlock that secret place inside where creativity flourishes.  Even now, I can smile, remembering those wonderful languid afternoons.

We loved the time we were able to spend with our grandsons in Los Angeles, despite the ongoing frustration with their mother.  They were happy to see us, and we spent some really good days together.

When we left, it was 76 wonderful degrees.  That first day, starting after noon, we went as far as Flagstaff, Arizona.  Not a long trip, but we weren't in any real hurry.  We didn't start looking for a hotel until we were good and ready.  Upon arriving, the temperature had cooled to 54 degrees.  The next day's journey was broken up by the absolute necessity to stop in Albuquerque to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game.  We pulled into Pueblo, Colorado around 10:30 pm. and got out of the car to discover we had located winter, a bone-chilling 6 degrees.  So in gaining 1,100 miles, we had lost 70 degrees.  .

The next day was an easy 90 minutes up I-25 to Aurora.  It had warmed (if one could call it that) into the low 20's.  Still, the car was unloaded with alacrity.

It was great to see Crystal's family and be grandparents once again.  But the time here is short.  We are off again early next week to Honolulu to give Cheryl some precious time with her 91-year-old mother.  Hey, it's not my fault they live in Hawaii.  We'll be there for about three weeks, and then return to Colorado.  Where to next?  Don't know.  Some of the offers dangling out there include returning to Southern California, the Golden State's central valleys, or Las Vegas.  The choice, when made, will be a combination of pay, work schedule, and availability of affordable housing.  Extended Stay America is all right in a pinch, but a furnished apartment would be soooo much nicer.

There was a time when our lives were anchored by that thing called "home."  But having put that behind us (along with the mortgage, taxes, and utilities), we are free to roam wherever our whims take us.  It is likely that at some point we will be motivated to plant our feet once again, but not now.

It's a big, wide, wonderful world out there, and we haven't yet eaten our fill.