One week from tonight, we will have begun our journey out of California … for the third, and hopefully last, time.

We’ll be on our way to Nashville, Tennessee, to take up a new, and hopefully less stressful way of life. Frank starts a new job with Vanderbilt University on 15 Dec. I will start the Tennessee teacher certification process and then look for a new job of my own, hopefully with grades K-2, nothing higher than that.

The last two years and four months here in California have been a real struggle. Very tough on all fronts, especially medically/physically (see posts below). It’s been good for our careers, but very hard on our bodies and minds and emotions.

We’re in the midst of packing and cleaning and getting ready. One week from right now, we’ll be in Bakersfield, then heading on west down I-40/US 70 to our new home. I was born and raised a block from US 70, lived most of my life fairly near it (in New Mexico and Oklahoma), and now will be living, again, a block from US 70, this time in Tennessee. I seem to be bound to this road somehow.

We’ve sort of let this blog go black, mainly due to the exhaustion of living in California, as well as being thoroughly disgusted with the state and not wanting to even write about it or think about it more than necessary. But I think we can be a little more enthusiastic about Tennessee. It is, if nothing else, a blank slate for us, and our discoveries can be charted here.

At any rate, we’re off on yet another adventure cross country. Should be interesting!