Post 1 - I sold my house, quit my job, bought a van, and left on a Grand Adventure.

Disasters are terrible, tragic, grievous, and not to be desired.  The point is not to welcome disasters.  They do not create gifts, but they are one avenue through which gifts arrive.

                           Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Build in Hell

When he died, I became someone else.

I used to dream of us, thinking that within his brown eyes there was a future I could count on.  Futures are never certain.  Nothing will teach you that better than watching someone you love die in your arms.

                           I Fell in Love With Hope, Lancalli

I am traveling to process my grief.  Come to find out, I’m not the first person to ever do this.  What a surprise…I thought I was special.

But it feels…validating…to know that what I suspected – that I am traveling to process grief – is exactly what I am doing.  I thought I was using that as an excuse.

For two and a half years after John died, I would go to work, come home, grab a bottle of wine and sit on the couch watching t.v. and crying.  Then I would go to bed, wake up the next day and repeat.

One day, I woke up and said to myself:  I can’t live the rest of my life being this sad and letting my life pass me by.  John would be so mad that I had wasted what he no longer had.  I need to change my life.  I need to do something that makes me want to live.

There are things in this life you want to do before you die.  You really don’t know if you have tomorrow.  I worked in accounting for 40 years.  I was working for a large company and was making good money.  After John died, I knew that work and making money weren’t what my soul needed to accomplish before I died.  I needed to see the world, see all the things I wanted to see, taste all the food I could, listen to all the music, drink all the wine.

Reba's Grand Adventure:

I wanted to go on a Grand Adventure.  What I got were scorpions in the Sonoran Desert, ghosts in the bayous of Louisiana, cougars and mosquitos the size of cars in the Everglades, sharks in Keys of Florida, a haunting in Savannah, and a serial killer in Kansas.

And at every stop I made, I found a new friend - someone to listen to me tell my story of a broken heart and someone to help me carry what could not be fixed.

I left Benicia on the first day of my Grand Adventure.  The plan was to arrive in Santa Barbara around 3:30 p.m., bike around the water, enjoy a lovely dinner of fish tacos and a nice chardonnay, then drive the rest of the way to my campsite at Rincon Parkway.  I would locate my parking spot, spend some time walking along the beach, then watch the sunset on the beach.

It didn’t work out quite that way.

I thought I had plenty of time, so I took my time with the final packing of the van that morning.  What I hadn’t banked on was that it would take two and a half hours longer to drive than Google maps told me.  I don’t understand how this happened.  My average speed, granted, was 54 mph, but still.  Two and a half HOURS?!  I didn’t stop anywhere to look at anything or eat lunch.  I stopped for about 10 minutes to make a sandwich and go to the bathroom, but that is it.  I did go down Highway 1 as much as I could (which is curvy and therefore takes more time), but that wasn’t what I thought was a significant portion.

I arrived in Santa Barbara close to 6:00.  I was afraid of driving the van through town, so I parked it in the first available place I found.  I wanted movement, anyway, so figured the walk to the waterfront would be good.  I didn’t realize it was going to be an almost 40-minute walk.  I hadn’t eaten much in the afternoon because I wanted my fish tacos to taste really good, so I knew I had a short window before the Hangries kicked in. 

I did enjoy walking through Santa Barbara – the white buildings with the purple and red bougainvillea on the walls and the red tile roofs were a beautiful splash of color and nicely maintained.  It was clean and there were eclectic shops along the way.  I approached the waterfront and saw tall palm trees lining the waterfront road.  To me this is the quintessential California beach town.  The palm trees lining the street speak to me of warm summer evenings and waves lapping on the beach.  I found food, but it didn’t have a view of the water.  I must have been in the wrong place to find the touristy restaurants with the good views.  I wouldn’t have minded that – I would have sacrificed quality of food for a water view.  I ended up eating in an alley behind the Santa Barbara yacht club, where people in white pants rolled up to mid-calf walked around barefoot on the pavement, talking about their trips to Dubai.  Not what I had envisioned for the first night of my Grand Adventure along the coast.

I checked the time of sunset and realized that I needed to hurry if I was going to get to my campsite before dark.  I almost ran back to the van, so made it in 36 minutes, instead of 40.  Note to self – there is always parking by the water – look for it in all the other towns to come.

I put the pedal to the metal and made it to my spot just as the sun was about to descend behind the Santa Ynez mountains.