Wednesday – We left San Francisco at 6am—before sunrise—and arrived in Joshua Tree National Park at 5pm—after sunset. We had expected the trip to take 9 hours, but with stops along the way and some traffic, it took 11. So we didn’t hold out much hope for one of Cottonwood’s first-come, first-served campsites—and yet, several were unclaimed as we circled the campground in the dark. We settled on one (#A9) that we later discovered had wide, sweeping views of the desert valley to the south. Unlike several recent cold desert-Thanksgivings, (all of which were inspired by our first trip to Joshua Tree in 2008) the weather was in the 70s during the day and the 50s at night all week—we never put the fly on our tent. For dinner we grilled sausages over a wood fire.
The first time we discussed selling our condo with any seriousness was in the middle of our eleven hour flight from Paris to San Francisco. That was Friday, August 18th. I remember feeling nauseous the next day—as we reunited with our home of almost six years after several weeks away—questioning why we would choose to forsake its many comforts, not to mention the dining nook renovations we’d only recently completed. On Sunday, jetlagged and up before sunrise, I wrote down the pros and cons of selling, trying to make sense of my conflicting thoughts.
The list in favor was overwhelming. The tidied up version now appears self-evident; corralling so many disparate emotions to get to this point was anything but:
Liquidating the equity in our condo should give us the money to pay for Stephanie’s grad school tuition (circa 2019–2022).
Renting should reduce our cost-of-living in the interim, allowing us to further bolster our savings while also making it easier to relocate if Stephanie attends a school outside of San Francisco.
Both of the above greatly reduce our dependence on my single source of income, should that change in the interim, or as a result of relocating.
Having lived in our condo in the Mission for almost six years, we were getting a little bored; in retrospect, while all the reasons above were cold, calculated, and driven by economics, this one we feel on a day-to-day basis. It wasn’t until after we moved that we realized how much we needed a change of scenery and routine.
POTENTIAL IMPACTS: INCREASED RISK OF RIP CURRENTS... SNEAKER
WAVES... AND LOCALLY LARGE SHORE BREAK. BEACHGOERS MAY BE
KNOCKED OVER... INJURED... OR PULLED OUT TO SEA INTO THE COLD
RESTLESS OCEAN.
