Goodbye California...

It's with mixed emotions that I write this today.  We are leaving the Golden State tomorrow.  We are leaving what has become home over the past 5 and half years.  We will miss the towering redwood trees...we will miss the rugged mountains...we will miss the trails...we will miss the endless beaches...we will miss the golden sunsets over the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean.  We will miss the people...the wonderful people, so many of which have become our dear friends, our family. 

We are being called back to a place that fills my thoughts and dreams.  We are being called back to a wilderness island in the forgotten reaches of the largest freshwater lake on earth.  I left this island 14 years ago with a promise to return...and that promise needs to be fulfilled.  I can already hear the loons...I can see the rugged, rocky trails...I can smell the scent of the balsam fir.  This dream is finally within reach.  Isle Royale is within reach.

Tomorrow, we leave our life along the Pacific.  I hate to say goodbye.  I feel as if part of me is breaking inside.  But a new adventure is just around the corner...  Thank you, California, for a wonderful 5 and a half years!