Delicious coast-to-coastness

One of the best things about my job is that it involves a lot of travel. October took me to Charleston, SC, then Denver, and finally San Francisco. I’m back home in Southernmost Illinois now, and it’s good to be home and watch the leaves turn in all these acres of woods around me.

Some thoughts from my travels...

Charleston was all I expected it to be. I was captivated by its beauty and refinement. Its early architecture was so much more elegant than even Boston’s or Philadelphia’s. My son pointed out wryly, “yeah dad...they had slaves.”

Denver sure has grown up since my last visit about seven years ago. There’s actual vibrant street life downtown, and the arts have exploded. It goes to show what arts can do for a city. It’s also becoming very green, with innovative programs in recycling, reforestation and energy-efficient street lighting. I couldn’t help compare all that to Indiana, where they’re still trying to legally increase the amount of pollution they dump into Lake Michigan.

And of course, San Francisco. More of a gem than ever. Finally, they’ve lifted the constraints on downtown development and skyscrapers are starting to rise higher than the Transamerica pyramid for the first time since the 1970s. They’re dazzling, glassy, ephemeral, just like the city itself. Every time I go there I find myself wishing we had never left. The fourteen years we lived there made it seem like home. But whenever I confront the cost, the hassle, the weather, the frenetic pace of life, I’m glad to get back to Southern Illinois.