When a daughter recently announced that she was moving to the country from our favorite city, where I have always loved to travel, all I could think of was, “Never. Ever. Again.”

I used to love crossing this beautiful bridge into that beautiful city. However, since I did it for the first time fifty years, things have changed and so have I.

I remember crossing the Golden Gate when the toll was a quarter and a friendly custom was to pay for the car behind you.  I think now it costs about $6 and no one is paying for anyone else.

I am so looking forward to visiting her new place in her tiny new town (pop. 175) on the Russian River, nestled in a redwood forest, a mile or so upstream from the coast. No mail delivery.  She has a P.O. box here:

Gotta love a place where the P.O. conveniently shares its location with a confectionery.

As for me, this is just about the right amount of traffic:

That’s my long-time paddling companion Dave up ahead.  After we’d paddled 20 miles on Friday, I said I didn’t want to get into Friday evening traffic on the interstate on the way home.  Dave knows every country road in Western Oregon and promised he could lead me home on them all the way.  And he did.  Through beautiful woods and across Willamette Valley farms ready to be harvested.  Only hold up was a few minutes when we had to wait for a large farm vehicle to turn off.