We all very much enjoyed Orlando, particularly the way our friends, the Williams family, live it. They’re right at the back door of Disney, and they’ve found that Disney is wonderfully supportive of home-schooling and just plain a lot of fun. Epcot provides no shortage of learning opportunities and programs, as do other Disney properties and resources. The weather was cold when we visited but is usually nice, and we found much to love as we meandered around the town and its suburbs.
As I mentioned in my Grand Canyon post, I was particularly taken with Williams, AZ, mostly for its small-town feel near such a big natural attraction. Bandon, OR, where our friends the Carbieners have taken up residence (and who treated us like royalty when we visited), was also wonderful. Both towns were beautiful, small, and made me feel like I could walk the streets without a care in the world. Bozeman, MT, and Sheridan, WY, also gave us the same kinds of big/small feelings. And San Marcos, TX, seemed like another place that mixes well attributes of both big and small towns, and we enjoyed it a lot, though having friends there talking up its virtues may have biased us a little. It’s worth noting, however, that in all of these towns we've seen relatively few non-white people. As a bi-racial family traveling the country, we’ve been surprised at how segregated things seem to be. As but one example, Easter Sunday we went to the First Presbyterian Church in Spokane, WA, and found it to be a terrific blend of contemporary and traditional. A genuinely inspirational and engaging service. But counting Kerby and Joelle, there were 4 total non-white faces in a packed house of hundreds of the worshiping faithful. As we've traveled, it's made us wonder if race relations are improving in our country or if we're just better at finding ways to separate ourselves enough to be comfortable. It's also helped us appreciate our own at least somewhat diverse neighborhood. (By the way, “Frank’s Diner” in Spokane was one of our favorite restaurants. It's in a converted train car, the food is good, the service excellent, and the ambience fun…)
Anyway, Malibu was (big surprise!) absolutely beautiful, and living anywhere around there along the ocean coast would be both breathtaking on a daily basis and financially preposterous. In general, California weather has been the best on our trip, but this has been such an odd weather year it’s hard to tell overall if we’d have enjoyed the winter/spring months as well elsewhere. The southern states are all so hot through the summer, and I’m not a huge fan of really hot weather… Of course, I admit to still missing living in Duluth, MN. I’m not sure I’m tough enough to move back up there, and I know Nan’s not a fan of even the idea of spending winter in the great white north, but there’s a quality of life in Duluth that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
I think the winner of the “place where we’d most like to live” contest, among the cities and towns we’ve visited so far, is San Luis Obispo. SLO (the acronym is both funny and a nice description of how things seemed to operate) appears to combine in just the right quantities attributes of a big town with a small-town feel. A few weeks before we visited we read somewhere that every Thursday they hold a Farmer’s Market downtown. So we planned our visit to include a Thursday night, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. At 5:30 the police close one of the main downtown streets, and all kinds of vendors and restaurants and musicians and causes set up booths. Politicians roamed the streets drumming up votes (we Virginians were a disappointment) while individuals set up tables hoping to add signatures to their petitions (my favorite was a totally stoned guy working to legalize marijuana). Various organizations that support the poor were represented, including one that really caught our attention--the Lifewater.org group. They used a number of creative methods to draw people in and inspire a sense of the importance of providing fresh water for the 1 in 8 human beings who live without it. (Check out their website!) There was also food food food, from fresh produce to giant BBQ sandwiches to ethnic foods of many types to mini-donuts and churros. And we ate plenty… Kerby joined a bucket-drumming group for a few minutes, Joelle loved the bubblegum alley, and I had an enjoyable conversation with a couple of CA Highway Patrolmen about the 55mph limit for all vehicles towing trailers (as though anyone in CA drives the speed limit...). All in all, there were a ton of people at the kind of event that many towns hold once a year, but here it’s a weekly thing that people attend in droves. We liked it a lot, and we loved touring the town, hanging out at the beautiful campground, and seeing memorable things in downtown shop windows--like a set of 4 well-dressed manikins, each holding a pair of binoculars as though looking through them at us…yet the manikins had no heads. Odd but amusing.
We also liked that the town seems to be geared around its downtown and its countless small merchants rather than some Wal-Mart-anchored strip-mall off on the highway. We’ve passed an incredible number of Wal-Mart/Home-Depot/PetSmart combos as we’ve crossed this great land. Over and over again they appear. Yet when we visit towns like SLO, or Bandon, OR, or Sheridan, WY, it’s clear to see that most of us who base our communities around the same chain stores have traded a sense of community to save a little money each month. (“Save Money, Live Better”…Makes you wonder.) The words of the German tourists we met in Chokoloskee, FL—the ones who were disappointed to see that all the stores in the US are the same no matter where you go—have rung on in our ears, because they’re too often right. We’ve found it a joy to see places like SLO that work to hold onto their community through some creativity and an ongoing commitment to just plain being who they are rather than to being just like everyone else.
On the whole, one of the things our whirlwind trip around the country has done is show us that there are lots of wonderful places to live. And home is what you get used to—your roads, your neighborhood, your Wal-Mart…I mean stores, your weather. For us, we’re happy in Richmond. It seems pretty likely, because of my job and Nan’s family, that we’ll just keep hanging out in the commonwealth until we retire and decide to become snowbirds, traveling and camping. Assuming we don’t strangle one another or get hit by a bus or win the lottery in the meantime. But once we do have the chance to travel longer-term, it seems likely we’ll be returning to some of these places to stay for extended periods of time. A few months here, a winter there… And we’ve been enjoying the opportunity to do some advance scouting of the various possibilities.
Where's Waldo - Find Nan at the SLO Farmer's Market
Kerby Joining Bucket Busters at the Farmer's Market
You've got to love a good Bubblegum Alley
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