In Transit

I have been to New York 3 times but I have never made it out of the airport. Each time I was there, I was stuck in transit, surrounded by shirts that said I Heart NY, and unable to get out and decide if I hearted it too. (I'm sure I could insert a real heart here if I was more tech savvy. Too bad I'm not.) I was caught between 2 places: where I'd been and where I was going.

We moved out of our old house 5 weeks ago, but we still haven't moved into the new one. So I am stuck in transit again. Only this time I have 3 little ones in tow. And it is lasting a lot longer than 24 hours.

Aaron has been camping out in the new house, sleeping on an air mattress, or at our friends' spare apartment when the paint fumes are too strong. The kids and I have been at my parents' house in Fallbrook. We miss Daddy awfully, our routine is pretty much in shambles and the kids have watched way too much TV, but we still managed to make the most of our time in "the country".

Fallbrook doesn't have cow pastures a block from Main St any more, but it is till a lot more rural than Long Beach. There are lots of great hiking trails here and the kids and I have done most of them. Now when I ask what they want to do today, they almost always ask to go to the preserve. We have gone to so many that we have come up with added descriptions to tell them apart. Our favorite one by far is "the one with the coyote."

The Santa Rosa Plateau is the kind of place you think you can't find any more in Southern California. The whole time we were there I just kept stopping to marvel at the beauty. My eyes could not take in enough of it. One of my favorite things about the Plateau is the quiet. There were no car sounds. No people sounds. I could actually hear the sound of the wind blowing through the grass. We stopped, and sat, and just listened to the quiet.

On our first hike we saw quail, a hawk soaring over our heads, caterpillars crawling across the path and most exciting, a coyote. It was only a few feet from us, in the bushes off the path. It felt like we had won a prize getting to see him so close. The boys couldn't stop talking about it.

Even though it will be an hour drive from Long Beach, we will visit the Plateau again. There are so many trails there, and I want to hike them all. I posted a link here, so you can check it out. (Just type Santa Rosa Plateau in the search box. Sorry I don't have a complete link. Darn computer.) It is definitely worth the trip. The visitors center is first rate and you could pack a lunch and make a day of it. Better do it soon though. Summertime will be hot.

All this communing with nature has me head over heels in love with this new blog I found. It is a fantastic find. It is called The Magnifying Glass and you can get to it here. Bookmark it.

We plan on moving into our new house this weekend, and I will be able to download the 350 pictures I took this month and post a few. I wish I could do it from here, but I think my parents' computer was made before digital cameras were invented, so the technology isn't compatible. I'll have some pics of the Plateau to further entice you to take your kids. Let them experience the wilderness. Let them hear a little quiet. Oh, and watch out for the mountain lions.