I broke camp at my mountain hideaway last Friday, not because I wanted to, but because the campground posted a message that F Loop would close on Sunday at 11:00 a.m.  I didn’t like the thought of my camping gear stranded in a locked, vacant loop, so with the help of a pretty friend, I drove from my Placer County property to my camp, pulled up stakes so to speak, then drove back to my rural property with all my gear in two vehicles; I drove one, she drove the other.  Now I’m in my writing room posting this blog and getting closer to the decision.  My friend is influencing it.  If I can find winter-proof lodging, I may stay in Bridgeport to write my novel during cold winter days and nights.  If not, I may go on the road in Optimus Prime and write from warmer locales.  I will be returning to the campground at the end of September to fish for trout with old friends.  I’ll visit with the residents of Bridgeport during that time, then make my decision.

I’ve returned to my country home on the edge of suburbia.  It has a swimming pool and spa. It has a vegetable garden and fruit orchards that produce delectable morsels.  It has a rose garden and flower beds that produce colorful displays. It has a green pasture. It has a home office I call my writing room that looks out at the pool, orchard, and ornamental trees that turn shades of red, yellow, and orange in the Fall. It has a king-sized bed and a hot shower.  It has a modern kitchen with two-door refrigerator, double convection oven, electric stove top and all the latest conveniences. It has a workshop with my tools. It has carports that protect my vehicles from the elements. It also has my wife who has filed for divorce. It has so many things I’ve taken for granted and will miss. Yet a dissolution of marriage and a sale of my home seems inevitable.  Divorce is such an ugly episode in a life.  I suppose it offers hope for a new and happier life, but that hope is hard to find at times.

Since the opening day of fishing season in the Eastern Sierras, known colloquially here as “Fishmas,” mostly for the benefit of out-of-town trout fishermen anxious to land that first trout of the season, I have been living off and on in the Sprinter van I’ve named Optimus Prime in a mountain camp located fourteen miles west of the small town of Bridgeport, California.  When I’m not at my mountain camp, or visiting with the residents of Bridgeport, I’m at my home in Placer County, California, preparing it for sale.  Today, the first hint of Fall arrived on a breeze that blew down from twelve-thousand-foot Matterhorn Peak – a bit of a chill after weeks of hot weather broken occasionally by thunderstorms.  That hint of Fall and the cold weather it portends, has me feeling the weight of an imminent life-changing decision – do I stay or do I go?

You might say I’ve been on the horns of a dilemma for the past three months weighing the pros and cons of moving to a small town so different from the suburbia near my Placer County home and perhaps ending my sabbatical from the practice of law.  I’ll write about these pros and cons as I work my way toward this life-changing decision, but before I do, I’ll simply say that the environment here is spectacular.  The mountains, cattle-filled pastures, streams, lakes, and blue skies are gorgeous. The residents are good, kind, hardworking, and hardy people.

Can I find my niche here and live year-round?

Can I give up the comforts of suburbia?

Maybe.

The town of Bridgeport from Travertine Hot Springs with Bridgeport reservoir to the right.