I’m driving 700 miles a week, and that’s just for work, not including the driving around adventures on my days off. My home is 200 miles from my job, and my dad’s house is 50 miles from work. That’s a lot of driving.

But I think it’s worth it. My “Monday” morning commute (Reno to Pittsburg on Thursday morning) is 200 miles and takes about 3.5 hours, sometimes 4 hours depending on traffic in Sacramento. I wake up at 6am and hustle to get out of Reno as fast as I can, because my shift starts at 11am and I want to give myself plenty of time to not be late.

I’m lucky to have a 4×10 shift. I work Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then I have three days in a row off: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So the long commutes work for me.

So I spend three nights a week in Hayward at my dad’s house, which is pretty great. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night when I get off work at 9:30pm I drive from Pittsburg to Hayward, about 50 miles. I usually stop at The Bistro on B St for a pint of Pliny. Then I sleep in my old bed in my old bedroom and get a good night’s sleep. I wake up extra early in the morning so I’ll have over an hour to sit with my dad and drink coffee and talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Then I jump in the shower, get ready, and leave for work. On Sunday nights, when my work week has ended, at 9:30pm I leave Pittsburg and drive 200 miles back to my home in Reno–which takes less than 3 hours and there is never any traffic. I get home around 12:30am and sometimes I’ll stop for a burger and a beer at one of the many 24hr sports bars in my neighborhood.

When I wake up on Monday morning my weekend has begun and I’m already in the mountains.

Eventually I’ll have to get a job up here. But honestly I’m not looking TOO hard. I have it pretty good. My job in the Bay Area pays a decent wage and I have really great benefits. I have nice, long, 3 day weekends every week. I get to spend at least an hour with my dad three mornings a week. I get to stop at my favorite pub and enjoy a pint of my favorite IPA three nights a week. A three hour drive back to Reno on Sunday is a piece of cake to a seasoned road traveler like myself. And when I wake up on Monday morning I have three full days in my playground–I’m already here!

Today I woke up to see that it snowed overnight, and all the local mountains have a beautiful dusting of snow. And I’m reminded of why we did such a crazy thing (like leave the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia).

Life is good.