Three years ago today, I arrived in San Diego. After stopping to stay the night in Albuquerque, Rob and I rose early, loaded the Mustang with our two dogs and two cats and continued west. I remember our route and how how we stopped to eat breakfast in Gallup at Denney’s around 9:00am. We continued west on I-40 into Arizona and then at Holbrook turned south toward Heber. I was nervous. I had a shih-tzu riding on my lap as we sped through the winding, twisting roads to make better time and avoid Flagstaff. Somewhere in the forested Arizona mountains, we stopped for gas. We wound our way down into Phoenix where we stopped at a QT for a break and were surprised by the sudden heat. We stopped again in Yuma. From there we continued west on I-8 and I marveled at the sand dunes, and then the agricultural fields as we approached El Centro.
As we continued west, I could feel my excitement beginning to build. I knew we’d drive through more desert, and then start to see wind farms with the giant wind turbines as we headed up into the mountains. We had taken this route before when we visited a few years earlier. I knew the mountains would amaze me with their giant orange-brown boulders. They reminded me of the cartoons I watched when I was young. I had seen mountains covered in trees in Colorado and Washington. I had never seen mountains like these. Rob laughed at me. As we cut through the mountains and began our descent, I began to understand what we had done. I had spent weeks packing and preparing for this very moment. We had packed everything into a trailer that would be delivered in three days. We had moved halfway across the country. We had left so many people behind.
That was three years ago. We came here with hope and dreams and ideas. We were not naive. We knew we’d face challenges because there are always challenges. And this has been true. It’s not easy walking away from your family. It takes time to adjust and move forward.
I am grateful, every day, for the opportunity to live in such a beautiful place. I love having orange trees outside my office window and how the scent of orange blossom fills my room when the trees are in bloom. I love being able to pick oranges for fresh orange juice, if that’s what sounds good. I love listening to all the birds in the morning as the day begins. I love being distracted while I’m working by the hummingbirds that frequent the trees outside my window. I love the parrots and all their commotion, when they fly by in the morning and then later in the evening. I love that I can sit outside on the patio, almost any day of the year, and enjoy a glass of wine. These are things I did not know in Kansas.
There are so many things. There are the obvious things, but it’s more than that. I love the ocean, I love the city, I love how there is so much life here. But it’s more than that. I can gaze into the distance and see the landscape rise up into the hills. As I drive on the 52 heading east, just over the summit at Mission Trails, the view of the valley with the mountains in the background is simply stunning. When I drive home from the gym as the sun begins to climb over the mountains, I breathe in all the colors in the sky. And when I finally signed up for my first half-marathon since moving here, I ran along with the Pacific Ocean just to my right.
These are all things I did not know three years ago. These are all things I would not trade for anything.
Take the 52 west 