There’s nothing quite like the Midwest.  Nice people surrounded by rich, beautiful landscape with more lakes than you can imagine.  And it’s colorful.  Summer brings a deeper, truer green than many other places in the U.S.  Fall is too colorful to even describe; with cool weather, fewer bugs, and trees turning color, it is the season I’ll miss the most.

Winter has it’s own kind of beauty and can be appreciated.  The first snow fall is always exciting, the white blanket covering dying grass.  Huge, fat snowflakes falling, clinging to the branches.  I’ve always loved the times of thick hoar frost.  It turns everything into a winter wonderland.  Though Andy does not like winter, I will miss parts of it.  I won’t miss it lasting for months on end but the experience of winter is something a bit magical.

And then Spring, muddy, dark, gloomy Spring that brings rain.  The first sprigs of grass budding from the ground, the first buds of leaves, the first flowers to bloom, and then an explosion of color that’s been missing in the previous months.  Gorgeous.

I guess seasons are what I miss.  Southern California doesn’t offer much in the way of seasons.  We’ve experienced some rain, clouds, and strong winds.  Cooler nights and hotter days.

An even bigger thing I miss are lakes.  A reservoir is not a lake.  It’s a manmade body of water pretending to be a lake.  And the restrictions here that are placed on access are ridiculous.  Some do not allow private water crafts, some limit them, some make you pay a cleaning fee before entering the water.  Most do not allow dogs.  How do you take your dogs swimming when all the lakes have restrictions?

We wanted to take our kayak out with the dogs on the calm waters of a lake.  So we started looking up lakes near us.  Now, this is SoCal and real lakes do not exist but we hoped for a good boating experience anyway.  Theo has never worn a lifejacket or been swimming for real so we thought this would be a good time to start.

No such luck.  Two of the lakes are closed (closed!?) and the other two do not allow dogs on the water (or in one case, within 50 feet of the water).

How are we supposed to take the dogs out with us?  Short answer: we can’t.  We have to take them to a dog beach on the ocean.  Doesn’t sound too terrible but Piper likes to drink water when she swims and can get pretty sick on saltwater.  And the waves can be a little scary so it’s not ideal for Theo to learn.

Those issues along with the crowds are a huge deterrent.  I never thought I’d say this but I’m missing Minnesota right now.  We are coming into Summer, cabin season.  I know I’m going to miss our yearly camping trip up north, miss spending weekends or free time at the cabin, and miss our yearly trip to Lake Superior.  Summer in Minnesota is my least favorite time of the year because I hate the humidity so I never thought I’d say that I’m going to miss it.  But I am.

People are going to continue on with their Summer routines without us and that’s a little sad.  Sure, we have this to look at:

Or this:

But we don’t have the people with us to enjoy it.  Our friends and families are back in MN and we miss them!  They’ve shown us a great amount of support on this adventure so far.  From helping us prep our home for sale, to storing our RV and taking care of our pets, to monetary support, to physical labor, to…to…I could keep going on.  The point is, we wouldn’t be here without them, without their love and support.  We are very thankful.  Our adventure has been amazing thus far and some of our success has to be attributed to them.

They’ve supported our dreams and our dreams are becoming reality.  We are excited to see where the future will bring us!