Texas, meet California

Lookout Trinidad Bay Inn

We woke up at our inn in Trinidad and shared breakfast with a Texas couple on their 30th anniversary visiting the redwoods to see the big trees (“we don’t have those in Texas”). They were sixth generation ranchers from Mason County living on 800 acres that had been in the family since the 1850s (it ends up that 17% of people in Texas are of German descent, as they are ..  who knew!?). Their home is partially made of old growth Longleaf Pine from the first house on their ranch. They are focusing on Red Angus cows in their herd .. but evidently the Black Angus cows have been winning the marketing game so it’s harder to sell Red Angus beef, even though they are basically identical except for the color of their fur. Is there a lesson in that?

Their two children have dispersed off the ranch and they do not know what will become of the property which is clearly a stress for them, although they remain hopeful that their kids are showing at least some interest in ranching.

It must be amazing to have that type of heritage and connection to land.

China Camp, San Rafael

That evening, we ended up in San Rafael, in Marin County (with absurdly blue skies and warm temperatures for mid-winter). At dinner we met Ed and Karen, just out to dinner from yoga class, who were definitely not from Texas. Karen sees Marin County as “the center of possibility” and was excited to know about our Eugene connection because she will be going near there later this year to the ‘Conscious Growth Convergence’ conference. That made my head spin a bit .. evidently Conscious Growth focuses on things such as “community resilience, earth-based wisdom, and cultural change”. Does that earth-based wisdom have anything in common with how the Texans view land? I’m thinking not .. but maybe!?

Ed was in his words “people-focused half the time”. To prove, he rapidly made observations to me about half the people in the restaurant without looking up at any of them … and seemed awfully right when I looked around. 

People are great.