Teresa's landing down in Cow Town & Teresa's train adventures (pt. 2)

near Mount Shasta during the road trip part of my travels with my dear friend Antonia & her little red car

Hello Everyone,

It's been quite a "full on" ride this past month, winding down my big train trip over to the east coast & then bouncing back up to Calgary (Cow Town) to find a place to live & then get a good chunk of my stuff moved out of my folks' garage & from a few friends' places, who were so very kind to store my particles and/or use the big items for awhile.

As you know from my earlier note, I found a very comfortable basement suite to move into & it is working well so far. I get about 30 minutes of walking to get to the LRT (train) station & then from the LRT to work and another 30 minutes for my return home. My walks to work have often been highlighted by the spotting of snow shoe hares in a big field near the LRT station that I walk past to head to the office.

One morning I saw a total of 9 white, very large snow shoe hares!! The next day, I saw 8 of them resting in a few spots of the big field. On my way home, which I now call "goose time" instead of home time, ... the Canada geese have been greeting me & drawing my attention skyward, where I have enjoyed the splendid sights of the moon in full view (including last week's lunar eclipse!), as well as some fairly awesome sunsets over & behind the downtown skyscrapers.

I am finding myself feeling somewhat cramped & closed in at times, if I am hanging about inside for too long, especially if it is a small or very warm space. My twice daily walking routine is helping balance this a little but the smaller windows in the basement of my new "digs" are adding to this challenge at times.

In line with all things "new" ... I have given my BLOG a new look to spruce things up, I hope you like it :)

All in all, my transition back from Land of Oz has been immensely helped by the time I took to bounce about down south of the 49th parallel. Not only for the temporal (slower pace) side of things, but also the climate, & the reconnecting with such dear friends & the members of my family scattered further afield than Alberta.

Here's a few more pic's from my big train trek across the U.S. ... where winter travel conditions & snow storms caused significant delays and each station stop I made along the way provided new opportunities to reconnect with many splendid people & pets in my life. Thanks again to all of you that welcomed me so warmly and made my visits so absolutely enjoyable :) You are splendid!!

Winston, my sister Xenia's pride & joy

Antonia, me, & Joan when we met up briefly north of San Francisco

Joan looking out over the big "community" garden/farm near her lovely home in Sebastopol

Joan, Me, & Judith enjoying a sunny day at "the farm"

one of the many monarch butterflies in Santa Cruz ... heaps of them hanging in the trees!

Kristin & Gabriel enjoying some of the big storm winds that were building out along the coast ... we ended up with a power outage for 10 hours that day because of a fallen branch from a Sequoia tree.

big waves crashing ashore through the rock arch on "Dog Beach"

two terrific Tiggers having heaps of FUN!

Karly, the 18-20 year old kitty enjoying the warmth of the fireplace during the big storm

Kristin, Claudette, Isabel, & me in Santa Cruz

Visiting with my Dharma friends Cheryl, Gleb, & their son Aidan was also very splendid!!

Aidan posing as a shark after we put this awesome floor puzzle together

Aidan & I having heaps of fun :)

ARRRGH ... it's pirate Aidan decked out in his very excellent Halloween costume

it was great to reconnect with Cheryl in her new California home

Gleb & Cheryl in Palo Alto, CA

Thanks heaps for having my dear friends & family, it was great to reconnect with you again & see how you are!!!

More pic's & stories on my train trek in my next posting ... that's enough for this segment.

Be well & keep doing what you do to contribute your uniqueness to this world we call home!

Teresa