I’m on my way back to Moline for three more weeks. Right now I’m in the Denver Airport and missing my sweet Anna already. (It’s only been about 5 hours, and I have about 500 hours to go until I see her again. Yikes!)
I had a great week in Oakland. (Except for the part where the moving truck came and left about 10,000 pounds of stuff in the middle of our apartment.) It was fun to see a few old friends and family. And it really made this whole “pick up and move 2000 miles to the west” thing feel real.
Taking stock of the past seven years, I’d say that they were among the most interesting of our life together (meaning Anna, the boys, and me). The midwestern adventure we set out on in 2002 has paid huge dividends. We learned so much about human nature and about a different way of living. We experienced seasons (with a vengeance). I remember writing back in the spring of 2002 that the variation between Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall in Palo Alto was subtle. In the midwest, subtle change is not something we use to describe the seasons. I’ll probably have more to say about the differences in our life on the west coast and our life on the banks of the Mississippi over the next few weeks.
All in all, if I had the chance to relive this adventure—knowing what I know now—I’d do it in a heartbeat.