It’s not that we hate Bend.

I’ve heard that’s why I’m moving. It’s funny when people tell you things about your life. It’s definitely true that I hate snow. I ain’t gonna lie. But I love the high desert sunrises and the far mountain vistas and exploring the rock shelves and walking out in those wild west landscapes as far as the eye can see.

Except we’re not staying. Over the Christmas holiday storm surge, one of my friend/horse clients asked if we would like to live at one of her adorable Bonny Doon horse properties in exchange for taking care of a couple horses. Not a bad deal for either of us. Our old ranch had just been announced for sale, and we had to evacuate all the horses and stuff out in a couple of months. Hers needed a place to live with someone like me to look after them, and we were back on the sparkly path.

We were being given the chance to move back to where we’d been trying to move this whole entire time, like I mean whole entire time of my life for the last 25 years entire time. But always been outpriced and outbid to the point where one day we just gave up and said f&*k it, we’re moving to Oregon. So we did. Here we are. In the snow.

But soon to be there. To a cute little funky house, on a good road, with a tiny arena and good fencing and defensible space and just ten minutes down to Felton, and fifteen down to the Westside and fifteen down to Heart Dog. I know all the times of those mountain roads, all the curves, all the things, because my heart’s been there the whole time.

We tried to bring our hearts to Bend. I know I’ll never have gazillion acres of rock shelves and juniper and ponderosa forests out the back door that we just set foot into and walk to our hearts content every day. I’ll never live in such a nice house, with that wilderness exactly adjacent again, that I know is true. But to live the rest of our lives here, our hearts weren’t here. It’s not our family. And it was challenging for me to make a living, and challenging to do all the things I like to do. The trade off for the space was too great.

So it’s back in the truck we go. The things back in boxes. We’re hitting the road in a month and coming home. Will we miss it up here? For sure. I’ve met so many wonderful people, everyone I’ve met in Oregon is warm and kind and welcoming, I made new friends and got to spend a lot of time with old ones, and gained some wonderful new students. The guy at the gas station gives me handfuls of dog cookies every time I go get cheap gas that I don’t have to pump myself. I sure hope to be back to visit, there’s something in the vistas here that call out to me really loud. I rarely even go beyond the footprint of the Horse Ridge land out back. I thought that was going to be all mine.

The trade off is it’s crowded again. I have to share the trails again, and the highways, but I’ll get to do it from the vista of 1.7 acres in Bonny Doon with 5 acres across the road I get to borrow whenever I want. And Fall Creek around the corner. And I’ll be scared in the summer that it’s going to burn and stuck up there in the winter when it’s blocked by trees and mud. But it’s home, and that’s where we’re going. See you there.