This is home.
Well, I had an awesome weekend trip to Phoenix, Tempe and Chandler, which I'll recount in some detail tomorrow. But for now, I wanted to highlight something said toward the end of my trip that summed up the weekend in a way.
On my third trip down to the dungeon — aka The State Press newsroom in Tempe — I stopped by briefly to say farewell to everyone there. While I was in the dungeon that time around, I was able to catch up briefly with Gina, one of the sports editors, and she asked me, "How does it feel to be home?"
For the record, it felt good to be home... and it still does.
Pondering Gina's words later, I realized that pretty much every place I visited over the weekend was a place that felt like home. It was definitely good to be back in Arizona after a solid five months of not having left Southern California.
At times, I thought to myself that this weekend's trip was one that was long overdue. But all things considered, I think it's probably a good thing I waited this long to make a return trip to the places where I went to high school and college. Over the past five months, I've really given myself the time I needed to feel at home here in Palm Springs and in the Coachella Valley as well.
Had I dashed off to Arizona in the summer after a week or a month of living in California, it might have felt like I was returning home from a foreign land. But this weekend, I felt like I was just traveling from one home to another.
It was certainly good to be back home in the Valley of the Sun this weekend, and after a busy couple of days, it's also good to now be back home in the Coachella Valley.