Goodbye Red Bluff CA

On April 3, 2017, we signed the escrow closing papers at the Placer Tile Company in Redding.  Our home and property in Red Bluff were finally sold.  We occupied our old home until the morning of April 10th.    

This will be my last Cloud Hands Blog post from Gushen Grove, Valley Spirit Center, Red Bluff, California.  

Today, 4/10, is the day that Karen drives our 2007 Chrysler 300 and I drive our 2003 Ford Explorer to the City of Vancouver, Clark County, State of Washington. The drive is 500 miles on Interstate 5 from Red Bluff to Vancouver.  Vancouver is on the north side of the Columbia River across from Portland, Oregon.  The City of Vancouver has about 157,000 population.  We are moving from a rural area in Northern California, population 14,000, to the Portland Metropolitan Area with over 2.2 million people.  I lived from 1946 until 1998 in Metropolitan East Los Angeles.  

Both of our cars are packed with essential belongings.  Our dog, Bruno, rides with Karen. We stop and rest , and sometimes switch cars, at the numerous clean public rest stops along I5 (e.g., Canyonville or Klamath River Crossing). We also stop and eat at restaurants along I5.  We stop at two gas stations.  




We lived for and worked for 19 years in a rural area, seven miles south of the City of Red Bluff, Tehama County, North Sacramento Valley, California; from June of 1998 until April 10, 2017.  

We enjoyed meeting new people, contributing with our coworkers, serving and educating children, making friends, serving in our community, and helping other people.  We both worked part-time for 17 years for local school districts.  

We both loved gardening on our five acres of clay soil, outdoor activities, and natural history studies.  We both enjoyed the dramatic seasonal changes in the North Sacramento Valley, California.  Our neighbors, all senior citizens, were all pleasant and freedom loving.  We sold our home to two women who support their aging grandfather, and are raising many children.  

We liked traveling and camping or moteling in Northern California from the Pacific shores near Fortuna to the high desert near Susanville (California State Highway 36); and all the mountains, forests, lakes, and valleys in between.  We visited our children and their growing families four times each year in Portland, Oregon, from 1999 to 2017.    

I enjoyed developing all of my hypertext notebooks and my Cloud Hands Blog during this period.  Each year, one to two million documents were served to people around the globe.  

I enjoyed teaching from 2002-2016 at the Tehama Family Fitness Center in Red Bluff.  Over the years, I taught yoga, tai chi chuan, qigong, mat pilates, spin cycling, Silver Sneakers, and personal fitness training.  

I enjoyed working for the Corning Union Elementary School District from 1999-2016.  I worked part-time, during the school year, as the District Librarian (Certificated) or as the Technology and Media Services Supervisor (Classified).  

Karen worked part-time for the Tehama County Department of Education for 15 years as a Special Education Instructional Assistant (Classified).     

A very positive experience of nearly two decades for both of us.  We left behind many friends, and many good students in the schools and gym in Red Bluff.  

Goodbye to our beautiful Red Bluff Home and our many delightful experiences since 1998.  

Can't turn back, life goes on, the moving finger has writ.      

Hopefully, we can arrive safely, a bit tired, in Vancouver this evening.