Adios Santa Barbara

Our bags are packed and our lovely little bungalow in the hills of Hope Ranch is empty.  The last two weeks have been a blur of packing.

We rented a storage container from the most "affordable" company we could get our hands on.... The only problem with that mentality, and what we discovered later, is that the container gets tipped up onto a 45 degree angle to be put on the truck.  That means all the stuff inside the container will be tipped onto a 45 degree angle and smooshed to the back.  Can you imagine all our stuff tumbling around in there, glasses breaking, bikes sliding and surfboards cracking?  Yuck!  As many of you know I like problem solving and puzzles and I think I've figured out a system so that no harm will come to our things.  Now we only need to see if it works.  The truck guy should be here within the hour.

Tomorrow we spend our last day and night in our house on the hill with the Beviers.  We loved our last 2.5 years here and are definitely sad to say goodbye.  We know that this moment was around the corner, regardless of a trip out of the country or not, as our family is growing.  Besides, we'd eventually get tired of sleeping in the living room while our one year old gets the master bedroom.

We will be sad to leave Santa Barbara as well.  We have a wonderfully supportive community, one that we'll happily return to next June.

Mostly we are excited.  Saturday morning marks the beginning of our nomadic/transient life style.  We're heading to Mammoth, my home town for the first month.  We'll mountain bike, swim in crystal clear and icy cold lakes, hike through the beautiful forest and mountains, rock climb and relax.  Then we'll do a whirlwind trip through Southern California visiting friends and family one last time before we board our plane to Chile in early September.

I'll update this blog when we leave Mammoth or if anything funny and or note worthy comes up.  Otherwise, expect to hear from me more regularly when we start our trip.

Thanks for all the comments.  I appreciate them.  If you know of any x-students of mine that would be interested in reading this blog, please pass it along.

Ciao Santa Barbara, stay classy