Return to the States

We arrived back in the states on Sunday after a long flight from San
Juan, PR, to Los Angeles. The vastness of LA was a bit overwhelming,
and the smog was scary. On St. Thomas, the only bad air days were due
to ash from Montserrat's volcano or dust from the Sahara Desert blown
across the Atlantic. We had a short layover waiting for our quick hop
to Santa Barbara (where we left Dave's car at his parents' house). We
alternated between standing around looking shell-shocked, wondering
why people weren't saying Good Afternoon back to us, and pointing out
exciting things to each other - like all the restaurants. The St.
Thomas airport has only one place to buy food. LAX had too many from
which to choose. American Eagle has its own terminal at LAX which is
bigger than the St. Thomas airport itself. The Santa Barbara airport
was much more my speed. After 3 flights, and about 11 hours of travel,
it was nice to arrive on-time and with all of our luggage. Our
household goods will take 6-8 weeks to get to Sacramento. It's nice to
know that if we need anything other than what we brought with us, we
can probably buy it without too much difficulty. It didn't work that
way on the move down to St. Thomas.

From Santa Barbara, we drove north to the Bay Area where we're staying
with my uncle and aunt while we find temporary housing in Sacramento.
The drive went well - it helped that we'd done the drive many times
before. Dave found it pretty easy to stay on the right-side of the
road, since he grew up in Santa Barbara, he knew where he needed to be
on those roads. I, on the other hand, kept trying to tell him he was
on the wrong side. When we approached San Jose, the highway was 9
lanes wide at one point (with on-ramps, etc). It was crazy. There are
so many cars, and along the highways, we saw so many shopping areas.
It's just amazing how many places there are to buy things.

We went to the grocery store yesterday for the first time since our
return to the mainland. It was beautiful. The produce is amazing.
Shiny, pretty apples. Berries without mold - and for half the price
that we're used to seeing. So many varieties of cereal. Real milk (we
had reconstituted milk on St. Thomas). Unexpired yogurt. We perused
the aisles in awe. An employee actually asked Dave if he was in a
dream-like state. We were like kids in an enormous toy store right
before Christmas. Wide-eyed until we realized we weren't dreaming.
Then giddy. We went to Trader Joe's later, and once we think we're
ready - we're heading to the Berkeley Bowl - more fresh produce than
you can imagine. And we're really enjoying the fresh home grown
tomatoes our family's have been giving us.

Everything seems very surreal right now. It's hard to tell if this is
a dream, or if the last two years were. It seems like we were on a
different planet in St. Thomas. We're back at the house we were at for
the month before we moved to St. Thomas, so in some senses, it seems
like those two years never happened. We just woke up and the rest of
the world had moved forward for two years, while we were sleeping. Now
it's time for us to move forward too. The immediate plan is to find
temporary housing and jobs. When we get more settled, or when we need
a break from those tasks, we'll write a bit more about our most recent
trips. Coming soon(er or later): Dominica, Anegada, and Dave's
homegrown pineapple.