Returning to real life is always hard. The better the vacation, the harder the comedown. But it’s something else entirely when the vacation changes you, when you experience everything you want in a place where you could actually live, when you can see your life there, and then you have to come home.
Ithaca was like that. It was magical, but it also wasn’t a fantasy.
By the time my husband and I pulled up to Mark and Renita’s house, we were already enchanted by the rolling hills and deep green forests surrounding Cayuga Lake. My husband had met them at fitness camp in Utah a few months earlier (yes, that camp), and they invited us to spend a couple of days with them when we came to the Finger Lakes, promising hiking at nearby Taughannock Falls State Park, a trip to a cider house, dinner, and maybe even a trip out on the boat.
House isn’t the right word. It felt like we’d rolled up to a retreat overlooking Cayuga Lake. I was ready to pull out my bags and start unpacking. Their gloriously wooded property, set back from the road and bordered by two ravines, included its own pond flanked by geese (the bane of Mark and Renita’s existence, but in our minds, they only added to the charm).
Perched several stories above the lake, their airy home felt like a treehouse. It opened onto a massive wall of windows and two levels of decking that spanned the length of the house. Everywhere there was a view, there was a chair, and there were a lot of them. It was like you were being dared not to sit. One evening, as the sun went down, two bald eagles soared right past us at eye level. It was the closest I’d ever been to these majestic creatures.
We ended up spending a couple of days with them, wining, dining, hiking, and boating. We spent a few more exploring Ithaca and the surrounding area, hiking the incredible gorges, including Watkins Glen, walking Cornell’s campus, my husband’s alma mater, and visiting the home where he grew up on the outskirts of a tiny town surrounded by rolling green hills. It was in a word, heaven.
We’ve been talking for years about moving when my daughter graduates high school, but this part of the trip challenged some of our previous beliefs and solidified some others.
It made us seriously consider what we want in a place for this next chapter of our lives. My husband had written off Ithaca because of the winters, but after visiting our friends and seeing how they are surrounded by nature every single day of their lives and listening to how they make winters work (travel to warmer climates), we started reconsidering it.
They mentioned a friend further down the lake was about to put his house on the market, so that very first day they took us out in their boat so we could get a look at it. A few days later, we toured the house before it officially hit the market. The real estate agent, a local writer, told us stories about the town as she showed us around, and we fell even harder with the idea of living there.
It wasn’t the right house, but if it had been, we would have made an offer.
After that visit, we finally did the exercise we’ve been talking about for months. We made a list of all the qualities we wanted in our next hometown. Then we ranked those qualities in terms of categories of importance and fed said list into AI to generate a list of destinations. Some of them were places we’d never heard of, most of them we’d never visited: Charlottesville, Virginia; Frederick, Maryland; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Saratoga Springs, New York. Even Ithaca. Now, we’ve got a whole new set of destinations to check out!
Of course, we’re still considering options, including the possibility of living abroad, but it was helpful to really narrow what we’re looking for in a place: size, feel, beauty, and more personal considerations like how easy it would be to find community and people with shared interests.
The rest of July
After Ithaca, we headed to Raleigh for a family event before making our way to Montreal and deep into Quebec.
We went whale watching in the Saguenay Fjord, which turned out to be the most peaceful, grounding experience of my life. If you missed that piece, you can read it here.
We also climbed a via ferrata (“iron road”) inside Saguenay Fjord National Park. I’m going to write more about that soon.
We came home, and well, all I can say about that is: going back is hard, even harder when it’s Texas in the hellscape of summer.
July on Almost Sated
July was a quieter publishing month than usual, mostly because I was out in the world having experiences instead of writing about them. But if you missed anything, here’s what went out:
Why I never know how I’m going to feel in my body until I get there
The whales don’t care how fat you are
Looking ahead
While August is officially the end of summer for most of the world, it’s when things really get cooking in Texas. We kind of have to suffer through it, but there’s now an end in sight. I’m thinking back to cooler days.
August is already shaping up to be a month of processing everything that came up in July. There’s the via ferrata story to tell, and Ithaca is still on my mind.
Have you ever visited a place that completely changed what you thought you wanted? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
I concur that Texas in August is the devil's asshole. (And that's not even counting the politics...) I'm a bit obsessed with the idea of living on the east coast. Even though I'm a born and bred Texan, I've always felt such a pull to that area. My son lives in NYC, so there's an even stronger pull now. But my daughter lives in LA, so we feel kind of stuck in the middle. I'm going to live vicariously through your relocation though...
I loved reading about a part of the world that I have yet to visit. Beautiful photos!