After living in Northern Virginia for a couple of decades, Linda and I are moving this Spring to Patrick’s Point which is just north of Trinidad in Northern California, where the redwoods kiss the fog. Trinidad is two hundred miles north of San Francisco and four hundred miles south of Portland, Oregon. We will live two doors down from one of our sons (and his family, with the third grandchild to be born in June). Our other son also lives in the area. Until our cliff gives way and our home slides into the Pacific, we will wake up to the sounds of seals and the sight of fog or breakers on the rocks below. We thus will be doting grandparents from less than a hundred yards away.
There is a nearby airport (built during WWII to teach pilots to fly in fog, as the area was reportedly more fogbound than any other place in the lower 48), so we can easily travel when we wish to see the world. We will learn to build a fog delay factor into our travel itineraries, but the fog may help us remember that we can’t control most things.
One thing we have loved about being in the Washington DC area I sthat so many people have visited us. We hope our friends and family will use the extra California bedrooms as much as they have used or Northern Virginia spare rooms in the past 25 years. We also hope that our Washington DC friends will visit. We will not be within easy distance of the daily Federal drama but we think our visitors may be charmed by the serenity of the place where the redwoods grow and we are almost certain that they will be awed by the kaleidoscope of sea creatures.