Back from vacation...

I just had the most amazing trip back to California. It is so good to go home. Too good, in fact. I didn't want to come back. I believe if I didn't have pets, I would have stayed. Just a quick recap of the trip, in case anyone is interested. ;) Arrived in San Francisco and drove to Lake Tahoe. We met up with friends celebrating their 25th anniversary, went to dinner, hiked, toured and gambled. After they left, my DH and I continued hiking, shopping, toured ski resorts, took gondola and tram rides, went out on the lake on SUPs, went to a concert and scouted the area for potential relocation in the near future. After our Tahoe adventures we headed to the bay area to visit my family and continue checking out the local scene. We checked out a few areas we had never been, went to Mavericks, Santa Cruz and spent time in the city. It was an amazing trip. It seemed to go so fast and photos do not do it justice. OMG. It is so pretty in the Tahoe area. I cannot even describe the blue...its like blue on steroids. Mark Twain said it was the fairest picture the whole world affords. He also quipped,"To breathe the same air as the angels, you must go to Tahoe." John Muir also mentioned Lake Tahoe in many letters, calling it the "queen of lakes" and writing his friend Jeanne Carr that he had "sauntered through the piney woods, pausing countless times to absorb the blue glimpses of the lake, all so heavenly clean, so terrestrial yet so openly spiritual." He wrote further, "The soul of Indian summer is brooding this blue water, and it enters one's being as nothing else does. Tahoe is surely not one but many. As I curve around its heads and bays and look far out on its level sky fairly tinted and fading in pensive air, I am reminded of all the mountain lakes I ever knew, as if this were a kind of water heaven to which they all had come." I feel the same way. It is breathtaking. If you haven't gone, you should. It will change your definition of beautiful. The 12 X 22 mile body of water has 70 feet of visual clarity...you can see 70 feet down. It is also breathtaking, quite literally. If you fall off a SUP in the darkest parts of the lake, it will take your breath away. Take my word for it. ;) I am now on the job hunt in an aggressive manner. I found the area I want to live in and I am going to do everything in my power to get this plan in motion within the next year. Fingers crossed.