It took two days, a canceled flight, and multiple re-bookings, but on Friday night we finally landed in California.

We’ll be here for the next few weeks, and blogging will likely be sporadic.  As my friend Emily Buck says, we’ll be disconnected from the internet, and therefore more connected with the places and people in front of us.  It’s refreshing to turn meanings around and see that we can be “disconnected” when we are staring at our phones or computers, and connected when we look up to see another’s eyes.

So in that spirit, I’m keeping this short.  But I will tell you this: Citrus bought in Vermont should not be allowed to share the same names with the freshly picked fruits at the Farmers Markets here.  As I bit into a tangerine yesterday, I realized I’d never really had a tangerine before–the thin skin exploded with tangy, sweet juice in my mouth, so filled with water it was as if I were drinking.

So we begin our journey with fruit: persimmons, avocados, tangerines, strawberries, and cherimoya–fruits I didn’t know existed–now fill our shopping bag, and we’ll continue on like this up the coast, filling up at Farmers Markets and soaking in the sun along the way.