My time’s about up down at the paper mill. I’m taking a severance package and moving on next month.

The move is literal, I’m afraid. Melissa and I are going to pack our things and head east to North Carolina to hang out with her family in climes less draining on the bank account.

Of course this will make it difficult to maintain a Bay Area Hiking Blog when I’m not actually living here, though perhaps not impossible. NC has tons of trails and I suppose I could blog on from there.

Initially the thought of leaving these hills, trees and waterfalls behind filled me with a grief so profound that it shocked me to realize how attached I’d become to them. I can’t even think I’ll never be back; I just can’t say when.

If you’ve never worked in an industry slowly but certainly becoming obsolete, you can’t appreciate the funereal feel of working at a newspaper these days. Right now my prospects are unemployment in the short run and destitution in the long, but after what we’ve been through, it’s a step up.