I have recently been hospitalized in my own mind from a condition known as Moving Syndrome. This psychiatric condition is caused by packing up all your stuff and loading it in a truck and trailer, followed by lots of driving, unpacking all your worldly possessions and depositing yourself in a brand new place, leaving the known and stepping toe into the unknown. Jules Vern shit. Or perhaps Alice in Wonderland, though I can not remember taking the blue pill nor the red.

Today is the last day in my old world. It will be filled with “Bon Voyages” and “see-ya’s”, “we’ll miss yous” and “damn, you’re movings”. Suddenly we are Lewis and Clark trekking across the desert where it is 120 degrees, where the asphalt melts to your tires and you can fry an egg on a stone. Though I can’t tell which of us is Louie and which is Clark, though I think Miss Chicapee would rather be Clark.

With cat in cage and dog on leash, though we don’t own a dog, (can you really own a dog?) we will pack up and travel like the Beverly Hillbillies to our new Beverly Hills. And all this for some sunsets, desert views of spectacular peaks and fine living.

I am awed and frightened at the same time. Can’t figure which would be better for my condition, the blue pill or the red, so I am taking one of each. Searching for Shangri-La, I recognize the gravity of the journey ahead. What keeps me going? The thought of friends and family whom we will reach when we get there. The smiling, if not perplexed expressions of new students to teach, and movie night in our car port. That and the swinging of a weighted stick at a little white ball, all in the efforts of landing it in a gopher hole. What an odd condition this is.

Still I know there will be journeys end, where people smile and the hardware store doesn’t take hiking boots to traverse. 30,000 people instead of 30 million. I plan on befriending each and every one. And as I whip the ponies in a few days the siren call will simply be “Tally Hoe!” which I think refers to the counting of saloon girls.

Good night Cali, good night traffic, good night road rage, good night smog, fog and rats racing, the trout await. And hopefully air conditioning.