So here’s the thing: Melissa and I have decided the pastoral life is perhaps best left to pastors, or something, but in any case we’re moving back to town in the next month and that’s going to require a major culling of years of accumulated junk, plus packing what’s left into boxes & getting them ready to haul someplace else.

This sounds a bit trite after Al Gore has his Oscar and all, but despite all the scenery where we live in the hills overlooking Silicon Valley, we’re not living an exactly sustainable lifestyle. The drive up the hills is five miles each way, seven days a week, sometimes a couple times a day, just to get to the edge of civilization. Most places we want to go are another five to 20 miles each way. We live in a poorly insulated cottage heated with bottled LP gas that is ridiculously inefficient (and pricey) to deliver.

So what we’re doing is moving to an apartment complex next to a trolley line that goes to most of the important Valley destinations (and right past Wine Hiker Russ’s house). It’s four miles from work — far less driving and walking distance in a pinch (and the trolley goes half the way).

Bottom line is blogging’s going to be light around here for the next month or so. I’ll still do my weekly write-ups at Busy Being Born, though they might be more about moving than hiking for awhile.

One of my goals of this move is to cut way, way down on clutter and simplify things. There’s not much simpler than walking upright on dirt, so the hiking will continue. It’s still incredibly easy to take pictures of hikes, post them on online and write about the experience, so I plan to keep doing that.

One last detail: I’m going to have to bail on the St. Patrick’s day outing I posted about last week. I’m not sure if Fedak wants to go anyway — last week he volunteered to drive a carload from his place down to Ventana Wilderness. E-mail him at john@fedak.net — he might still be interested in going.