Different State, Different World

This past weekend, the family and I flew out to visit my parents, who still live in the house where I grew up in Dixon, California. Mind you, they live in central California nearly 500 miles north of L.A. and, granted, were having a warm spell, but the weather averaged in the 60s and hit a high of 71 degrees while we were there.

It was a bit surreal to leave snowy Chicago (where we'd just gotten a foot of snow two days before) to go to a place where we were picking fresh, ripe oranges of our neighbor's tree.

My daughter Eleanor (shown above with her prize) hasn't ever been a real fan of oranges, but like with other garden delicacies, has a completely different attitude when she can harvest the fruit (or vegetable) herself. She went back to the tree several times for more. I include the picture of the orange tree to prove that we did, in fact, leave some for the neighbors! At one point, Ellie said, "Winters are better in California. We should maybe move out here!"

Sigh. Musher girl to sun bunny in four days flat...