We've escaped the Oregon snow to the land of expensive cars -- Ferrari, Porsche,
Mercedes Bentley, Rolls Royce, a Maserati or two-- and faces, both male and female sporting "some age adjusting work," lips unnaturally plump, skin a little too taunt, almost frozen. One doctor here advertises "lip volume" treatment, the route to plump lips, I guess. I've lived blissfully unaware that I needed fuller lips. All this has made me a little nostalgic for the slightly frumpy, unadorned, less flashy midwesterners we left behind in Chicago. The California desert community is a strange contrast to Bend where we live. Bend is the
land of go-go athletes, active folks skiing, cycling, hiking, and more. Evenings might be
spent drinking beer, listening to music, and talking about awesome ski runs down Mt. Bachelor, all while still wearing ski caps and snow boots. By comparison, the desert
community seems old; aged men slowly shuffling as they push a grocery cart, oxygen tank in tow, others spotted in their baggy pajama bottoms dragging an oxygen tank through a restaurant. Country Clubs, golf courses, and gated communities saturate the desert landscape. Richard thinks all the gates are to keep others out but I'm wondering if they might be designed to keep people in. Happy hour deals and "Sunset Dinners," a euphemism for early bird, abound as the older crowd streams in around 5 pm for cocktails, some swapping tales of their golf swings.
Contrasts can prove useful reminders of what we have and what we like.
While not the most interesting locale, the California desert offers us a few days respite from Oregon's cold. We aren't alone in our quest for warmth as we've seen car license plates from Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, British Columbia, Albert, Canada.
More snow has fallen since we left.
Just for the books, we slept in 23 new beds in 2016 (I never count a place we've already stayed before). But more dear is how many new places we had the pleasure of visiting in 2016 -- Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, the Great Barrier Reef, Darwin, and Brisbane, South Africa including Cape Town, two safari camps, Johannesburg, Northern Ireland, and then Glacier National
Park and Morgan Hill for a fun family wedding. Places we previously visited but revisited included Yellowstone National Park, London, Dublin, Sonoma, California, and San Francisco. Good-bye 2016. Now on to the challenges of 2017.
