Wow! What a Year!!
What happened to 2012? One
minute I’m in North Texas and the next minute I’m in the California Sierra’s.
Life sure can fly by when you blink.
Susie and I started the year
with a new job for both of us. Mine was working as an independent rep for the
Bo Brown Company and her new occupation was President and CEO of “Moving Tim
and Susie to California Inc.” By now (and also unfortunately) we have become
pretty damn good at moving, having moved 3 times in about 4 years. It’s funny, (at
least to my nimble brain I find the humor), but the stress becomes a little
less, the more you do it. Hah. Sucker! It gets worse the older you get! I
promised her this was the last time we strike camp and move.
When the offer came along to
work for Bo and move back to
California, we were both excited and a little apprehensive at first. I had
coveted this position several years ago, but I was a little late in my reaction
time and I did not want to get my dreams dashed again. When I heard it was open
again, I jumped at the chance and everything fell into place for me. I went
from a great job with Motomco to a super great job with Bo. I now work California and Arizona representing 8 awesome
horse and livestock lines, plus I get to work with some super people. Being independent and paying my own expenses
has had a learning curve to get beyond, but I’m better at it now than I was a
year ago. I’ve gone from Hampton Inn to Best Western and Outback to McDonald’s,
but being independent is definitely where it’s at.
The weather change was the
easiest switch for us. Our first morning back in California greeted us with a 50-degree
morning. Toss in a high of 80 and no humidity and I’m a happy camper. I was
working around Santa Barbara in July one week and the temperature was in the
60’s during the afternoon. Hard to beat. The San Joaquin Valley and Fresno area can
still get pretty toasty for a few months each year, but at least it’s a dry
heat. Ha. It’s still 105 no matter how you slice it. My saving grace is that I
get to travel to different areas of the state and get a little bit of a
reprieve from the heat during the summer.
One of the great added values
to living where we do is the abundance of agriculture. The San Joaquin Valley
runs through the middle of the state and grows an overwhelmingly majority of
the produce that the US and parts of the world consume. I will never get tired
of driving through almond and walnut orchards. The miles and miles of grape
vineyards is still amazing to me and driving through roads lined with pistachio
and olive tree’s makes me glad we are here. The first time I drove past acres
of tomato, artichoke, garlic and lettuce fields, my mind was boggled. It is
still hard to believe that these foods being grown in my backyard, will be
feeding people thousands of miles away. Even the early morning smell of dairy
cow manure wafting through the fog can be refreshing. Well, sort of anyway.
Living in the Sierra’s is the
crown jewel of my existence now. Like Susie say’s, even the view of the
mountains from the grocery store parking lot is pretty awesome. I will never
tire of driving up the hill from Fresno to Oakhurst on my way home. I seem to
decompress as I make the trek home in the afternoon. I guess my fixation with
the mountains is pretty well implanted thanks to my Mom and Dad. Mom must have
caught the bug when she went to college in Colorado and I think Dad was
infected while he interned during and after college. As a youngster, they would
always drag us to the mountains for summer vacation. Like most kids of that
age, I probably didn’t appreciate my circumstances like I should have, but I
think that is where the wanderlust of the mountains began to draw me in. Some
would say that I have completely lost my mind, but ever since those days of
being surrounded by the pine trees and aspens, I told myself that I would live
here one day. Well, that day is here and
we couldn’t be happier.
Making a move like we have done is challenging
to say the least. People are different and attitudes change as much as the
geography did. I will never have a true “West Coast Attitude” and my Texas
accent is here to stay. As much as I miss Whataburger cheeseburgers and a Taco
Cabana carne guisada taco, I am beginning to like In & Out burgers and fish
tacos. Who knows, maybe I can change a few of these California nuts minds about
barbeque. Stranger things have happened.
John Muir once said, “The mountains are calling and I
must go.” I hope I will live the rest of my days out among these mountains and
pines.
