"The further place is, the better it seems to us"

When I was a child growing up on an island in Alaska, the troublesome bother of foraging for food, picking up kelp off the beach, scraping barnacles off the rocks, hunting, fishing, all seemed so much more trouble than the fantastic images of civilization I could find in the library, of lambent neon glare banishing the darkness of night, 4 lanes of traffic on bustling city streets, millions of people hustling, haggling, creating the vibrant society that supported theater, museums, science, and all the blessings of civilization. I dreamed of living in LA, or New York, or flying from city to city and tasting the cream of the knowledge humanity had arrived at through millennia of probing, questioning reality, leaving only what could not be disproven potentially true.

Then, after I escaped Alaska, I made my way to Austin, TX, and dipped my toes in a vibrant city culture for a time - but Texas is HOT compared to Alaska, and the Gulf Coast is all swampland where it can be 45 degrees at midnight with 130% humidity, making your ~37 degree body the coolest thing around, so the moisture forced out of the oversaturated air condenses out onto you, making sweating useless, running into your eyes, dripping off your nose, drenching your clothes. So, I headed west, to the familiar Pacific Ocean and the fabled California coast.

However, I didn't expect the insane rents that fabled beachfront property commanded, and when I reached LA and saw the grim concrete sprawl of the barrios I never even stopped, but kept driving until I found rents I could pay with the little cash I had scrimped and saved up. I ended up in Bakersfield, CA, at the edge of the Mojave Desert, paying by the week at the 'Knight's Rest' Motel for a roach-infested cell with a private bath that doubled as my kitchenette, and found a job working for a company that put up steel buildings. That was in April, and by July the temperatures rose above 45 degrees every day for weeks on end. At least it was a dry heat!

Needless to say, the fantastic visions of cosmopolitan cities had soured, I eventually headed north until I hit the Pacific Northwest Ecological Zone and the deep, dark evergreen forests I was familiar with from my youth. Sometimes, we don't realize how good we have it until we live away from it for a while. Then, there's nothing like coming back.

There's no place like home.

Thanks!