Greetings from the North Bay

I’m finally touching base again after our move in July. For those that haven’t heard yet, my family moved from our home of 19 years in San Jose, CA to a new home two hours north in Santa Rosa, CA. Proximity wise we are not terribly far from where we used to be, (this move took us from the South Bay, one hour SOUTH of San Francisco Bay, to the North Bay, one hour NORTH of San Francisco Bay), however we knew when we moved here that it was going to be different and we were not wrong. It really is a whole new world up here in so many different ways, some good and some not so ideal. It is interesting really that it would be so different being the exact same distance from San Francisco as we were before. But the South Bay, AKA: Silicon Valley, is a stark contrast from wine country of Sonoma County where we are now.

To say that I’d been nervous about our move this past summer was an understatement. The three of us all were literally starting all over again with our whole lives not knowing anyone when we entered this town. And as a warm weather lover I was especially apprehensive knowing we would be having cooler temperatures and more rain in the winter months as it is colder up here with significantly more precipitation in the winter months (as we are currently discovering). Would we like it here was the big question.

To answer that question, we do like it – for the most part. I believe our quality of life has improved substantially. I credit this to several different reasons:

  1. Better school options then in the South Bay area. Because the South Bay was so tech heavy, competitive and academically driven we found the schools there were lacking big time in the area of arts (there were literally zero high schools we could see our son attending in a town of 1 million people!) When we found a public high school that we liked with an art magnet program associated with it in Santa Rosa we jumped at the opportunity. My son’s future high school is the primary reason we are in Santa Rosa today. And if for whatever reason that public high school does not work out for us next year there are three or four other alternatives here that have a better balance of academic and creative study, both public and private, that I could see working as well.
  2. Slower pace that comes with living in a small town while still having access to amenities. Santa Rosa is a smaller town but not too small. Population wise it is under 200,000. Since the population here is so much smaller than San Jose’s one million people, freeways here are substantially less crowded then they were in the South Bay. We can get to anything we need in 15 minutes or less. And the stores that I regularly shopped at down south are all here for the most part.
  3. More affordable housing. Keep in mind we moved from one of the most expensive U.S. cities to where we are now, so some might argue that Santa Rosa is as affordable as many U.S. towns. In San Jose we owned a small home that was in need of a foundation replacement, in a good neighborhood. With the money we sold that house for we were able to buy a much larger house in a very nice Santa Rosa neighborhood.
  4. Easy access to many regional and state parks, the ocean and Redwood trees. I’m an outdoorsy person so I love the numerous regional parks all around us and how easy that they are to access. I also love that Santa Rosa is an easy drive to both the ocean and the Redwood forest. I bought a regional park pass within my first month living here and I’ve already used it to enter a handful of regional parks in the area and I still have so many more to explore.
  5. Friendly people. Our efforts in reaching out to the community have been well received so far as people up here have been very friendly, especially our neighbors. Within about 2 months we met about 35 of our neighbors, many of which have dogs and we would see them outside walking them.
  6. Centrally located and an easy driving distance to Santa Rosa’s downtown and several other different towns with cute downtown shopping areas. Each of these surrounding towns have their own unique personalities and draw tourists to the area and are only a 15 or 20 minute drive from our house.
  7. Weather is mild and appealing for the most part. Yes there is a lot more rain in the winter months than San Jose had and it’s significantly hotter than San Jose in the summer months, but it is rare that it would ever snow here in the winter. In the summer, even though it is really hot during the day it cools down here in the early evenings making it very pleasant most of the time.

The biggest down sides I see here are:

  1. The lack of ethnic diversity. We realized that this town was not nearly as racially diverse as it was in San Jose. The South Bay has a huge population of Asian and Indian people (many working in high tech), Latino people, and people from many other various countries around the world. Here the population is primarily white and Hispanic. It lacks the heavy Asian and Indian population since it isn’t as much of a tech hub as the South Bay.
  2. Poorer population. The main industries here are health care, tourism, retail and tech. Compared to Silicon Valley though the tech industry pales in comparison. My husband is one of few here who is working in a high tech job where down in the South Bay it seemed the majority of the population worked in high tech. Because of this we notice a much poorer population overall. Our son noticed a different dynamic up here right away at school when there was no longer talk of expensive vacations or exotic places his classmates visited over their summer breaks which would have been the case of many of his old classmates. Instead new classmates’ summer break highlights included going to local nearby parks or being at home with their families.
  3. Higher cost of health care. Healthcare is a primary industry up here, the 3 primary health care providers being: Kaiser, Sutter and Providence. I don’t understand why but I was amazed at how much higher my doctor’s bills were here in comparison to the cost of equivalent health care in the South Bay. It is very strange that costs are so high here as the population up here seems to be older, as there are more retired people here than down in the South Bay. Whatever the reason is, the higher healthcare costs seem to be a thing.
  4. Lack of established friends. There is no substitute for having good friends nearby. When we moved I had to really extend myself and reach out and start to meet people. Although we have already begun to make friends in neighbors we see frequently, it is going to take years for us to form close friendships and its hard starting over again. At least we aren’t too far from our old place and we can still make occasional visits down to visit old friends. I’m confident with effort and time I’ll make strong friendships up here as well.

Uprooting

If you haven’t heard yet… I’m moving.

My family is kicking ourselves out of our San Jose, CA nest that we’ve painstakingly made our own over these past 19 years and are heading 2 hours north to Santa Rosa. For over 20 years my husband and I have talked about getting out of Silicon Valley and going somewhere less hectic but we could never figure out where we wanted to go. It wasn’t until recently, when considering high school possibilities for our son and not liking our options in San Jose, that we knew that if we were ever going to make a move out of town it needed to be before his high school years. So here we are, literally yanking our roots out that have so firmly took hold into the Bay Area ground, and are packing our stuff, which raises some very important questions:

What IS all of this stuff? How much stuff does one actually need? And at what point did I become so complacent?

If you know me at all, you know I am a minimalist. “One in, one out” is my motto when bringing new things into the house. Besides valuing original artwork and experiences I really don’t need or desire a lot of physical stuff. Unfortunately for me, my husband does not always share my motto and he often keeps a steady stream of Amazon packages coming to our house. Plus having a kid in the house makes my meager attempt at minimalism laughable, particularly whenever I suggest that my son considers passing on an old toy. So years of this behavior from my house mates has resulted in endless days of packing! How is it possible to box up 7 boxes of kitchens stuff and STILL not be anywhere near done in the kitchen? We’ve literally been packing for weeks and are still not done? I honestly think there needs to be a limit to how long people should be allowed to stay in one place before being forced to clean out their stuff! 19 years is definitely too long!

The second thing you may or may not know about me is that I don’t usually shy away from adventure and travel. When I first left home and went to college I regularly moved to a different town about every 2-3 years. I started at a new town when I left my hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania for Michigan State in East Lansing, Michigan. Two years later I transferred to Ringling School of Art and Design landing myself in Sarasota, Florida. After 3 years there, my first job took me to Huntington, West Virginia. Two years later I got the itch to move again and sought out a new job in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Two years later the itch was back, this time leading me to San Jose, California in the midst of the Dot Com years. Like clockwork, two years later, the Dot Bomb years came along and I lost my job. Had I not met Scott, I’m quite certain I would have headed back east at that time since I’d been feeling the pull to move again. But Scott WAS in my life, and whether he knew it or not he had inadvertently rooted me in San Jose. And somewhere in the 20 plus years that I’ve been here I stopped taking as many risks.

But all of my complacency has gone by the wayside this last month when our 20 year question of where to move to has been answered driven by finding a fitting high school for our son – which was found in Santa Rosa. In seaching for a home there, I’ve driven through San Francisco and gone over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge more times in this last month than I have in the past 10 years. We’ve sold our existing home and bought a new house in this last month. I’ve withdrawn Nathan from his beloved middle school and enrolled him in another hybrid schooling program up in Santa Rosa. We finally sold our van after trying to sell it for over a year now. We had no luck until just recently when we found the perfect buyer for it who LOVES the van and who coincidentally also had a vacation home just north of Santa Rosa that we will be staying in during our brief time of being homeless inbetween houses. And lastly, we’ve picked a contractor that is going to help us fix up our new home.

So although I haven’t been as adventurous as I’d wanted to be in my most recent years, I think these past two months more then makes up for things. As our roots continue to be yanked up in San Jose I can feel my adventurous side continue to awaken. There are places in Santa Rosa that I want to explore and new towns nearby that I want to see. Although leaving Silicon Valley is a big deal, and many places and people here will be missed, I’m sure that once the dust settles in Santa Rosa I’m going to be OK and new roots can start growing…just maybe not quite so deep this time 🙂