Life is good

It's 72 degrees at sunset, and I am sitting on my beautiful, newly rebuilt upstairs deck, listening to the birds and watching the last of the shadows climb up the hill across the bay. It's hard to imagine a lovelier place, and I feel so, so blessed to live here.

And yet, in the morning, I am leaving, for six whole weeks!  Hoping that it will be raining so I will feel a bit better about leaving. I always wear my Whidbey Island necklace when I'm away, thinking that if I miss it too much I can hold onto it, click my heels, and say "there's no place like home, there's no place like home".

I have to admit that it's seemed less like an actual home since my poor old kitty cat, Sabrina, went to her better place a month or so ago. I had been thinking that I would not get another pet, at least for a few years, given that I travel so much. But now I don't see how I can go that long living without a pet. We'll see.

At any rate, tomorrow morning I'm off on a road trip to Michigan, driving my old (16 years and closing in on 190K miles) car. I will leave it in Michigan so that I don't have to plunk down close to $2500 in car rentals during the 2 1/2 or so months I spend there every year. This plan still doesn't allow for how I will, in the future, get from the Detroit airport to my dad's place. Renting a car one way will cost close to $300 round trip, about what a week's rental costs. Flying on to Flint will cost about $300, and once there I wouldn't feel too bad about asking a cousin to come and get me, but it's still a good hour's drive each way. In a pinch I suppose I could bit the bullet and fly into Saginaw, a mere 25 miles away, but that would mean flying an airline other than Southwest, and since I've gone Southwest that would be hard, cold thing to go back to. Again, we'll see....

I'm looking forward to the road trip, although it will be 5 or 6 days of driving 6+ hours per day and not much else. And of course I'm looking forward to being with my dear old dad, at Chippewa pines, my other home.

Life is very good.