How I got here

So, how did I get here? The easy answer is that my husband got a job here and so we moved. We considered a separation. I could have stayed in Boulder with the babies and my job, he could have lived here alone until he was sure about his job. That's probably what we would have done pre-kids. But I didn't want him to be separated from the boys. Their development is so exciting right now. And it would have been hard for me to be a single parent. We didn't get married and have kids in order to live separately. So we all moved.

But it's more than that. My husband actually had two job offers. One was in the DC area, one was here. I chose Ridgecrest. I have to keep reminding myself of that. My family is in California -- not in Ridgecrest, of course, but at least now we're closer to everyone. My husband has family here too. In the DC area, we would have had no one except my brother-in-law's sister and her husband, and that just wasn't enough (though they're very nice).

But it's more than that. Even if we had no family here, we're westerners. I love the wide open spaces, the big skies. Although it seems like we're in the middle of nowhere, we're actually an easy drive from practically everywhere. We're close to Death Valley, we're close to the ocean, we're close to Yosemite, we're close to Las Vegas, we're close to the gorgeous national parks in Utah, we're close to Arizona, we're not that far from Colorado and New Mexico.

But it's more than that. In August 1979, when I was 19, I visited Ridgecrest for a few days. I came because my friend Mark had convinced the Suspects, a UC Davis punk band, to come out to the desert and give a concert. Mark and I had both just finished our freshman year at UC Davis and we both really liked the Suspects. I was stuck at my parents' house in Palo Alto with nothing to do that summer, and I thought it would be an adventure to take the Greyhound bus to Ridgecrest for a concert. It was. I have a few vivid memories of the trip, and I also found some diary entries I'd written about it in an old notebook. The concert was in Joshua Hall. Where the heck is/was Joshua Hall? I'll have to ask an old-timer. I stayed at Mark's girlfriend Linda's house. That was a complicated situation, as I recall. Mark and I were never a couple, but we had a pretty active flirtation going on at UC Davis, though it was mainly mental. We weren't in love. However, it was definitely awkward to stay with his girlfriend, although she was very sweet. Young, though. If I was 19, I think she might have been 15. I didn't have much in common with her. What made things better was the presence of Mark's friends -- Guy, Lloyd, and David. Really cool guys, all of them. Smart, interesting, good looking. I came away from that visit with the sense that Ridgecrest was a quiet, dusty little town with really smart, interesting people in it.

I am still looking for those people.

So when my husband said he had a job interview at China Lake, I said: "I'd move there!"

And that's how I got here.