The Territory Ahead

In life, exploring new territory can be both an opportunity and a daunting challenge. For months, Kit and I have been downsizing in preparation for a life-changing move to California where we first met in 1977. As spring began to show its colors in the Midwest, we packed up possessions that were coming with us and found wonderful homes for books, art, and furniture that we chose to share with friends and the community. By April 14, Boomerang Creek was no longer ours. As if erased from a chalkboard, the contents of every room of the house and studio stood empty. It was finally time to go.

Our journey began a month ago on a beautiful spring afternoon filled with promise. As has been our habit since our first cross-country road trip in 1978, we had no reservations or certainty as to where we would end up each night. As a farewell to Missouri, we followed Hwy 63 north from Columbia to Hwy 36, then drove west to St. Joseph, following I-29 north to the Iowa border. Before long, we crossed over into Nebraska and followed a slice of state highway up to I-80 and Lincoln where we stopped for the night. For the next three days, I-80 was our pathway to CA.

Day two, spring quickly faded as we reached Scotts Bluff, NE, and approached the Wyoming border. As the temperature dropped, the rain turned to snow, and our windshield wipers labored as slush built up blurring visibility. Weather alerts on Wyoming message boards warned that I-80 might be closed between Cheyenne and Laramie where we’d planned to stop for the night. Wisely, we located a car dealership in Cheyenne, got new wiper blades installed, and headed for a Best Western on Campstool Road close to I-80.

When packing our belongings in preparation for our move, it hadn’t occurred to us that winter hangs on in Wyoming throughout April and into May. A month after arriving in CA, I’m still getting winter weather advisories from Wyoming on my cell phone. By the time we pulled into the motel, salt was being strewn across the slippery surface that had to be negotiated between our car and the entryway. We weren’t going anywhere that dark and stormy night.

So, there we were without a restaurant insight at a time when Covid regulations limit dining options in motels. Blessedly, we were able to order take out from Cheyenne’s excellent Durbar Nepalese & Indian Bistro, delivered directly to our motel room door. The following morning, we opted to ignore the weather reports and pressed onward and upward over the first of the many mountain passes and stretches of desert landscape between Wyoming and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in CA. Like earlier pioneers, we made our way west past Salt Lake City, not stopping until we reached Wendover, Utah.

In the center of this off-the-beaten-path border town just west of the Bonneville Salt Flats, a line in the center of the town literally separates this sparsely populated corner of western Utah and eastern Nevada where casinos suddenly light up the landscape. At our motel, we learned about a local Mexican food diner down the street and just across the railroad tracks. A large billboard told the story of this site locked in a 1940s time warp. Here, the historic Wendover Field was once the site of bombing and gunnery ranges during WWII in the Great Salt Lake desert and vast uninhabitable salt flats terrain. Over 1000 aircrews completed B-17 and B-24 training there. On 6 August 1945, two months before I was born, Colonel Tibbets and his crew took off from Wendover Field in the “Enola Gay” at 0245 carrying the atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended WWII in the Pacific.

Some places feel like they haven’t changed in a lifetime. On our cross-country trip with our children Hayden and Heidi decades ago, we took time to drive across Utah’s salt flats and swim in the odd buoyancy and shallow edges of the Great Salt Lake, feeling the salt sting mosquito bites we’d acquired while camping outdoors. But now, CA lay just ahead, and by mid-afternoon of the following day, we were winding down CA Hwy 20, experiencing the first of many narrow mountain roads that lie in and around Nevada City, soon to be our new home.

Today a month has passed. We’ve reconnected with our possessions, tackled a mountain of packing boxes, and have hung most of our art. The house is now filled with familiar scenes that reflect places and people who have been a part of our life over the past forty years. Our early morning walks are on nearby trails and along irrigation ditches in forests of tall pines, spruces, and firs mixed with blooming dogwood trees. Our daughter Heidi and her partner Sugie spend part of each week in Nevada City at their second home, and we are gradually learning how to navigate the maze of windy mountain roads that dominate our local world. Siri guides us wherever we need to go. Our trusty 2009 Toyota Rav passed its smog test, CA license plates are on the car and our new CA driver’s licenses are on their way. We have officially arrived.

As of May 17, my “Notes from Boomerang Creek” column that has appeared in the Columbia Tribune since 1997 officially comes to an end. However, my blog will continue to chronicle our explorations of the territory ahead every Friday from our new base in Nevada City, CA.

Thank you for visiting my website in the weeks and months ahead and for sharing future blogs with friends.

The Frog in the Pond

The Call from Afar