East Coast

I haven't been to the East Coast of the United States since about 1999. In 1999 my wife's mother passed away and we went to North Carolina where her family lives to set a plaque for her next to her MOm and Dad there. (Her ashes are in the Santa Barbara Channel in the ocean off California as she wished).

It was my first trip that far east. Many people might wonder why but I was raised on the West Coast and it is just in my blood more. All I had to do was to see how high the population concentrations were east of the Mississippi and it sort of took away my desire to go east. Because like my forebears, we all really like the wide open spaces that give us room to breathe.

However, I found myself fascinated with many aspects of the East Coast. For example, in history books growing up I studied about the Civil War and of our connections to Great Britain and Europe. So when I went to the east coast in June 1999 to North Carolina, Washington, D.C. and to Boston and Salem to visit my wife's friends from when she lived there, I noticed how different the landscape and architecture was and of just how different people's attitudes were than California and the rest of the west coast. Though I like California's laid back ways and speech, sometimes people here can get a little too flaky. On the east coast I found the other extreme of people just being extremely stuck in old ways. I think somewhere there is a happy medium that would actually be useful. However, that is just my opinion. In the end I think it is all about balance. If you have enough balance you survive and without it you don't. Very simple.