Texas Migration – June 1st: Ten-thirtyish

After barely two hours on the road, we had our first blowout (note…I said first) just outside of Palm Springs on Route 66. Believe me when I say that fixing a blow out in 105 degree weather with one teenager, two anxious boxers, and three overheating chinchillas is not the way you’d like to get your “kicks” on this interstate highway.

While jacking up the trailer to change the tire, our jack broke making the task more difficult. To my husband’s credit, he laughed in the face of adversity. Okay, so he was cussing, not laughing, but after forty minutes we were just like Willie Nelson and On the Road Again.

PHOTO TO FOLLOW 

At the time, we didn’t realize the tire tread from the blowout caused major damage to the right-side wheel well and undercarriage, leaving a three foot square groundlight (opposite of skylight) hole in the floor of our travel trailer. This pleasant discovery came later that evening.

The Texas Migration – Saturday, June 1: Departure

We optimistically set a goal to leave the house by six a.m., so it was no surprise when we finally hit the highway for our new homestead at eight-thirty on a bright and shiny California morning.

My husband, almost fourteen-year-old daughter Lucy, and our three chinchillas (one pregnant) drove/rode in our 2006 Chevy Silverado, while pulling our twenty-nine foot travel trailer.

Momma, Sugar, is beige and pregnant. Can you guess what Lucy named the white chinchilla? If you guessed Snowball, you win.

Daddy, Quinn 

I drove held up the rear in our 2008 Toyota Yaris with our two boxers in tow—one of which gets horribly nervous whenever traveling in the car. Pee Wee is the five-year-old brindle, whose nervous behavior drove me crazy during each and every minute of our 1,382 mile journey.

On the third day I yelled at her and  threatened to leave her on the side of the road. For the last five hours of the drive Pee Wee sat like a statue, refusing to look at me or let me pet her, and stared out the window.

Dezzy is the nine-year-old fawn, she is the sweetest and most neediest dog in the world who never likes to be less than five feet from your side.

 Old photo from July, 2009, but one of the few where the dogs are awake and sitting still. 

Christmas Reminders All Year

When John was little, we started a family tradition of picking out our Christmas Tree from the Live Oak Canyon Christmas Tree Farm in Yucaipa. Every year, the weekend after Thanksgiving, we would spend the afternoon wandering the property looking for the perfect potted pine tree, browsing the gift shop, and letting the kids play in the blow up rides and petting zoo.  (http://trees.liveoakcanyon.com/)

After the holiday we would plant the pine tree in our yard. Often the tree wouldn't make the heat of a Hemet summer, but some took root and thrived—two even growing to 20 plus feet.

Around March, I noticed that one of my beautiful, old trees was dying from the inside out. Upon further examination, I noticed that there were little holes burrowed into the tree trunk and sap was seeping out like tears. This was the handy work of the Bark Beetle. The last infestation hit San Bernardino County forests around 1998, due to drought conditions and other factors. Unfortunately once infested, there is nothing that can be done to save the tree. (http://www.sbcounty.gov/museum/barkbeetle/distribution.htm )

Every day, from the underside needles outward, I watched the branches that once proudly supported our ornaments turn brown and brittle. Finally, I could stand looking at my poor tree anymore, so I had my gardener cut the branches off, leaving the trunk to stand alone against the wind. No more would it be shading my boxers in the summertime.

To me, it seemed like a metaphor for my life in California. It was getting harder and harder to keep up with the rising cost of gas, electricity, water, taxes, etc.

Maybe watching my tree die made it easier for me to leave California, despite the distance that would be set between my family, wonderful neighbors, and dear friends in my writing critique group. 

Leaving Friends Behind

During the weeks leading up to our departure, I tried to rationalize with myself and my daughter that moving in this day and age is different from moving when I was little. I mean, with texting and email only a click away, responses can be received almost instantaneously.

Not to mention, the face to face phone internet calls that Skype provides--which, when I was a child, was once just an idea in a "what will the future be like" paragraph that every grammar school teacher made their students write.

Surely, the distance won't make that much of a difference. How wrong I was.

For those left behind, their lives and routines stay the same. Of course they miss us, but their environment stays familiar.

To the mover, everything is new, unstable. Distance brings loneliness and isolation. Fears the next text or email may be one too many and we've become a needy annoyance to those whose everyday lives we still want to be part of.

So, here is the tribute to those we've left behind. We love and miss you and think about you often. Please don't forget us.

Lucy's Best Friend and Angles Game Good Luck Charm, Jill Farmer: 2011 Season

My Writing Partners in Crime (not really...in Children's Lit)
SCBWI Agents' Day May 2010 in Newport Beach, CA

Stephanie Jefferson (http://stephaniejefferson.com/), Rilla Jaggia (http://www.rillart.com/, and Nancy O'Connor, middle grade author and winner of several picture book contests

Memories on Crest Drive

Memories that made our home a special and safe place to raise our children, like putting in new French doors, playing in the sprinklers, Easter egg hunts, or bonding with family and pets.  

 Installed French doors 1997 

                Lucy: April 2001 

                                   

Easter 2009

I'm guessing this photo was taken in some unknown month in 2000, since I think Lucy looks about ten months or so, and John doesn't look older than 13.  

Second child is so neglected, don't you think?

Once again, neglected. 

 I have no clue what age Lucy is, but from her front molars, I'm assuming she's eightish,

Joanna and Pee Wee: Easter 2009 

 Lucy and her first chinchilla, Quinn: July 2011

I've got the date correct because the photo's date was stamped... yeah me. 

Okay, I mean, yeah technology. 

Our puppies grew up in the house, too. Photo of Dezzy after she and Pee Wee destroyed a twin mattress that we put on the porch for them to sleep on. 

 

They actually pulled it under the green chicken fence and adjusted it on the lawn. We actually had footage of this on our motion cameras. 

Last Two Rooms: Family Room and Garage

It is appropriate that these last two rooms are shown together. 

Whatever didn't fit in the above room, got stashed in here. 

The Old Office... aka John's Room

My husband painted our son's room McDonald's yellow, which I'm sure is one of the reasons why he left for college in Minneapolis the day after high school graduation and never looked back.

Wouldn't you?

The attic access wasn't a big plus either.