California dreamin', Part 1

Five years ago this morning — September 5, 2006 — I left Iowa City for Santa Cruz. It was the morning after Labor Day. Having packed my car and watched the Florida State-Miami game with Mervgotti the night before (I did not drink), I got up early and made the final preparations for moving. When the time came to shove off, the hardest thing for me to do was say goodbye to my cat. He had no clue what was going on; all he wanted me to do was let him out on my parents’ deck.

I rolled out of the driveway sometime around 6:15 am. At the intersection of Dodge and Church I reset the odometer on Tiff, my sister’s old car. Fittingly, the town and countryside were partly shrouded with a thin layer of California-esque coastal fog. Having endured the tedium called Nebraska, I rolled into a relative’s driveway in Denver around 8 pm.

Moving to California was a monumental moment in my life and I think it deserves some kind of sentimental recognition. Also, having left the Golden State over a year ago, I have yet to write any kind of retrospective regarding my time on the west coast. I thought I would wait and combine the two on the fifth anniversary of following Horace Greeley’s fabled advice. So in the coming days I should be waxing nostalgic — or not — about California dreamin’ and livin’.

(The picture was taken at the turnout just north of the Bixby Bridge on the incomparable Highway 1. The camera is looking south along the coast.)