Transitions and Gratitude

The transition from living a sticks-and-bricks existence to mobile life is much easier to blog about than vice-versa. When moving about the country in the Brew Hut, I was experiencing lots of new things, including challenges that weren’t always fun.  Back at home, it’s easy to go back to the familiar and the taken-for-granted.  However, after living on the road for more than two months, I am grateful for a few things in Wisconsin that I missed while on-the-road..  Contrary to some bloggers’ assertions, the West is not always best.

• Plentiful, delicious water.  In large numbers, people have relocated from areas of ample water to areas where water is scarce and becoming scarcer.  I can’t think of a time when we’ve ever had a water shortage or rationing at home.  I live on a private well that draws great-tasting water from a deep aquifer 155 feet under the surface. The only water treatment has been provided by nature–years of filtering down through clay, gravel and rock.
•  Clean air.  Fire and smoke are part of life in the West.  Air quality can be bad.  The sky is often hazy even in the mountains and desert. Where I live in Wisconsin, we might have days where burning is banned due to dry conditions of the forests and/or grasslands.  But when folks talk about bad stuff in the air, they are usually talking about pollen/allergies, not smoke.  I’ve never woken up at home to the smell of smoke from a forest fire.  I’ve never had to wonder whether a hiking or camping trip might be interrupted or cancelled due to fire danger.
• Grass and other foliage.  Now that it’s November, there isn’t much green here either.  But we still have grass (even if it’s buried under the snow).  I missed grass when I traveled this fall.  Elvis the dog actually had to learn to poop on sand out West.  He thought that he was doing something wrong at first.  During the few times where grass was plentiful, he would roll in it like the greenery was a long-lost friend.  Having grass to bind together the soil means that there isn’t blowing sand everywhere too.

There are many other things in Wisconsin to be thankful for, but these three items jumped out at me since my return.  Obviously, I missed out on some family stuff while I was gone.  I am enjoying catching up and renewing daily life with my wife and adult kids. My days are filled with heating the house with the wood stove, baking bread and making yogurt, stacking and cutting wood, hiking nearby trails, and reading books and blogs.  It’s a different routine than traveling in the Brew Hut, but still satisfying.

For Thanksgiving, we made a quick trip to Lexington, Kentucky for a  get-together with Julia’s sister’s family.  It felt weird driving the wheelchair van instead of the truck/Brew Hut combination.  The header photo shows Justin (and Elvis),  along with my nephew and niece in their lovely Lexington home.

I have no big trips planned until mid-January.  That trip will bring me to a new country with old friends. Until then, the blog will mostly focus upon beer, coffee and local trails. The main deer hunting/gun season ended on Sunday, so the woods will soon be safer to hike in.