Last day. Shipping boxes. Visiting the Valley. Driving over the 134 and the mountains. I’m glad X and I are going through the mountains on our way back to SF – I need to say goodbye to the California ranges.

My father reminds me how happy I was to be back on the West Coast earlier in June, how I called them from Seattle ravenously happy about the light and the ocean. He’s right, of course, I do feel more at home here. But this is a new adventure, and adventures aren’t about feeling at home. They’re about taking risks.

Replenishing the house-sitting staples: coffee, soap, toilet paper. Vacuuming dog hair. Tying up loose ends on the computer and in the brain.

Reading a vintage guidebook with ink drawings of important architectural sites in Chicago, and dreaming of Illinois.

Tomorrow we road-trip to Vegas and plunge into the Nevada desert.