Three weeks in California took us north from LA along the central coast, through Santa Barbara, Big Sur, and Santa Cruz, past San Francisco and up to Point Reyes National Park, before cutting east to Tahoe City, and then south again to Joshua Tree before finally returning to the airport last Wednesday.

Waylon meets the waves at El Capitan State Beach

hiking to a boulder field

Egret at sunset

Big Sur

camping among the redwoods

bouldering at Castle Rock SP

evening on the ocean

view from our camp

Buckeye hot springs, on the east side of the Sierras heading to Joshua Tree

camp

A young Joshua Tree

nap time in Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Trees

And now we are home, far from the 70 degree warmth of LA, heated instead by our wood stove as smoke rises in the single-digit air.  And we’re happy.  Maybe it’s the vitamin D we soaked up out west that still pumps through our bodies, but I think it’s more the fact that we are in the place we created, the place we chose to put our roots down.  While we let those roots stretch across the country, they always pull us back.

We celebrated our homecoming with a snowshoe through the forest yesterday, and as the dogs leapt and bounced through the fresh snow, we turned to the world at hand: white, bare, open.  The perfect canvas to start our dreams for another year on this land.

along for the snowshoe