Visiting Past Lives and Imagining Future Selves
Our first journey back to San Francisco since living there, an impromptu California Road Trip, an anniversary! Plus: Are we jaded? An honest assessment of life on the road and what we're up to now.
Dear friends,
This is a long-overdue post. We’re finally catching our breath after a tumultuous and action-packed end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. Rest assured, we are safe and happy in the Southern Pacific region of Costa Rica, just outside the Osa Peninsula. And we are proud to announce that our labor of love, Earth Parade, this family world odyssey to document endangered species, is now officially 1 year old! Our creature catalog is already at 15! Only 58 to go!
We can’t wait to fill you in on some of our latest expeditions and accidental encounters in the weeks to come. But first, here is a short travelogue, an ode to California, with some of our observations and random thoughts sprinkled in. If you make it all the way till the end, you will learn why our current plan is to mimic the undisputably cutest animal in Costa Rica.
We know things are crazy in the world right now, so wherever you may find yourselves on this January day, we hope you’re safe and sound. There has never been a better time for us all to play our little part in building a better world.
Thank you so much for supporting and reading Earth Parade. We are grateful for your attention and sincerely hope there is some exchange of value, learning, or, at the very least, you are being entertained by our adventures and misadventures.
Sending you all abrazos muy fuertes,
J+D
“In my dreams, you walk dripping from a sea journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night.”
-Allen Ginsberg
This is how we felt driving across the Bay Bridge. Kind of like zombies moving without thought, towards a moody, orange Pacific sunset. After so many months on the road, living in a home on wheels, we drove as if on autopilot, magnetically and instinctively, towards our former home, San Francisco. Being back here felt like a dream, memory, and reality colliding as one.
This was our first time visiting the city since we left her more than five years ago as a family of four, returning as a family of five. After our crazy last 24 hours in the Airstream, which included a near collision with what appeared to be the world’s largest bull deer, we were too exhausted and anxious to speak. We felt disregulated and weathered after this day, after this journey. We could almost feel a new batch of gray hairs coming in.
The orange light on the horizon made the Bay Bridge feel eternal. We were happy to see “Carl the Fog” again as we cruised closer to the San Francisco side of the bridge. He greeted us like a familiar friend, a cozy blanket to tuck us into our much-needed metaphoric bed on this fine, chilly fall evening. We pointed out the silhouette of Coit Tower and the pastel colored homes peppering the hills. Their lights felt like mini beacons of hope, reminders of the kind of home we once had and hoped to have again.
Suddenly and not so surprisingly, as we entered the city, our moods shifted. Life returned to our eyes. We were so excited to visit and show our kids the city that had a profound impact on our lives, because it’s the place where we became parents. The city by the Bay served as the scenic backdrop for one of the most sacrosanct times in our lives. The most charming host for one of life’s most profound transitions. A place that for us will always represent the idea of new life and infinite possibility.
After a tumultuous few days, we all felt exhausted and were craving both familiarity and space. We couldn’t wait to spread out in our Airbnb in San Francisco, which was painted a similar shade of blue to our old apartment there. We also had a special surprise in store. Dana’s lifelong bestie Danielle and her daughter Kiki had flown from Miami to see us and were secretly hiding inside the Airbnb. (Thank you to our wonderful Airbnb host, Alice, for letting them crash with us!) We surprised the kids, who were at first in shock, but quickly became ecstatic and turned into a pack of tiny whirling dervishes. After spending the previous 3 months with very little interaction with people their own ages, this surprise visit was a thrill for them, and a giant exhale for us.
This substitute blue house was fine and did the job. But it was nothing like our old blue house on the hill in the Inner Sunset, overlooking Golden Gate Park with unobstructed ocean views, where we’d watch the sunset or the fog rolling in like a slow-moving tidal wave.
We decided a few days later to knock on the door of our old flat. And to our surprise, the new tenant kindly let us in. It was surreal standing in the living room of the home where Dana labored, where our boys ate their first solid foods, crawled, and took their first little steps.
The piney, musky, but somehow tolerable smell was the same. I could recognize it the second I walked in. The mid-century modern chandelier that we bought in a vintage store in the Mission, days before we had our first child, still hung over their dining room table. The metal Ikea kitchen cart we purchased still stood right where we left it. The pain-in-the-ass white curtains we labored to install in our son’s first nursery were still hanging there. It was nice to remember these moments as we tried to make uncomfortable small talk with the new tenants. It was not clear whether Luca remembered anything and how much Ori actually remembered, but he claimed to remember the pink-bursting bougainvillea outside our blue house.
Our San Francisco trip was a walk down memory lane. We traipsed through the vast collection of global flora at the botanical garden at Golden Gate Park, where both boys had their first outings into the great outdoors as newborns. We visited our son’s first preschool, where our eldest learned to sing Mother’s Day songs in a Russian accent.
We hiked up the multicolored mosaic staircase to Moraga Hill, which was foggier than ever. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge to the tidepools at Muir Beach.
It felt like such a treat to bathe in nostalgia in such a formative place for our family. We also took the opportunity to behave like tourists. We devoured clam chowder out of bread bowls, rode the cable cars (for the first time), and of course, admired the sea lions at Pier 39.
And yes, we ate some delicious food—all our favorite Asian spots in the Inner Sunset. We chowed down at our favorite Sushi restaurant, Ebisu, and our regular waitress, Sunny, remembered us. Yummy Yummy was still two times yummier than any other Vietnamese restaurant. Manna still had an outrageous Bimbimpap. Burritos in the Mission. Arizmendis, Delfina, and Tartine. We did it all.
We burnt all the calories gloriously and quickly, hiking with new friends, belly laughing with old ones, walking up and down the infinite hills. After 11 days, it was time to move on. We left our hearts in San Francisco again.
There are threatened species all over California, including in the Bay Area, such as the rare San Francisco Garter Snake and the San Joaquin Kit Fox. They are typically harder to find without research teams and special permissions. So the plan was to fly from SFO to somewhere in Central America, where there is unfortunately a lot more wildlife on the verge of extinction, partially because it’s more biodiverse as you get closer to the equator, but also because there is a greater combination of habitat loss, illegal wildlife trade, and climate change impacts.
But then we thought to ourselves, maybe we should show our kids a bit more of California before we leave the USA. How could we not take our kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Big Sur?
After we left San Francisco, we drove down the coast towards Monterrey, where we stayed at a really cool hotel right on the beach. The hotel didn’t really have to be cool. We were just happy to be staying in any place where we didn’t have to clean up after ourselves. It felt odd, and we even caught ourselves looking for the broom and the sink to do dishes! What a treat.
The main reason we stopped in Monterrey, of course, was to visit the aquarium. We came here when Ori was a baby, but he wasn’t old enough to appreciate it. And now, with our kids aged 4, 6, and 8, each one a budding naturalist in their own right, this was the perfect time to bring them to this grand sanctuary of the seas. We couldn’t get enough. We spent hours admiring the otters, the glowing jellyfish, and learning from the marine biologists who fed leopard sharks by hand in the kelp forest exhibit. It was incredible!
We were all zonked afterwards and treated ourselves to a nice dinner in Carmel at Nora’s restaurant. If you go there, don’t miss the Chicken Pot Pie. Vivi was overtired and was deliriously hugging all the diners and everyone waiting outside for a table!
The next day, we visited the Great Tidepool near Carmel, where we watched the ocean retreat, revealing an intertidal zone full of life. We jumped from rock to rock, finding plenty of hermit crabs and anemones. If you love tidepooling, this is one of many spots along the coast you can visit, but the Great Tidepool, as the name suggests, is particularly vast. Try to get there an hour before peak low tide for maximum critters!
We kept on driving south until we hit another one of our favorite spots on Earth, Big Sur. Another important place for our family. It was here, in Andrew Molera State Park, standing under a double rainbow, where we decided a decade ago to move to California at the end of 2016.
This place was as magical as we remembered it. We relished showing our kids the giant redwoods, rivers, and one of the most gorgeous intersections of mountains and ocean. We stayed at the rustic Big Sur Lodge and treated ourselves to breakfast at the historic Deetjen’s. We feasted on some sensational huevos rancheros and savored the hot coffee that we didn’t have to prepare ourselves.
We mostly just hiked and splashed around in the Pfeiffer Falls area for a couple of days. The kids engaged in some risky play activities, turning fallen redwoods into river bridges and then crossing them. They then decided to cross a real bridge on the wrong side of the safety enclosure. What happened was our boys got out of my sight for a minute as I (Jaron) was playing with the girl, and Dana was watching us. Once we realized what was happening, I sprinted like a madman to stop them before they got hurt. I scolded them for it. Thank god nothing bad happened, as both boys jumped back to the correct pedestrian path, and the safe side of the bridge when they heard my screams. But it shook us and made us more aware for next time. With a 50-foot-plus drop into a rocky river bed, this crossed the line from risky play to an activity that could have had real bad consequences. I’m bringing this up because I think this is a tension that many parents may be quietly wrangling with. We know it’s good to let the kids engage in risky play and not be one of those helicopter parents, but where to draw the line?
In this scenario, we unfortunately failed. Thankfully, nobody got hurt, and we all learned a lesson.
The key learning for us parents is to evaluate all environmental hazards and intentionally play out the worst-case scenario in our minds. We all do this intuitively, but while you're travelling with kids, it becomes a real challenge. With 3 active kids, this has been one of the hardest parts of this trip. We must constantly assess the risks of new, foreign environments.
Kids will always push the limits. I know I did when I was a kid, so because of genetics, it’s likely my kid will do the same. It’s our job to know they will push the limit to the max, so we must read the room and have eyes and ears everywhere, but not swoop in unless they are at real risk. It’s not helicopter parenting, it’s Mossad parenting. Let them engage in risky play, but know when you must swoop in and protect your loved ones. We all do this intuitively, but I think this should be a more conscious, explicit act. You can even explore together and then set the ground rules for a new location collaboratively, so you know the boundaries are clear and understood.
After a day of risky play, a crisp glass of California cabernet at sunset calmed our frayed nerves. We dined at our favorite ocean lookout at Big Sur, Nepenthe. We observed a family of deer from the deck until we had the honor and good fortune to witness the grandest and most magical optical illusion of all. You know the one. That circadian, evening show where our orange flaming gassy power ball plunges into the big blue, melting into a little speck of fire before vanishing out of sight. This particular one was a dandy.
The next day, we vanished from Big Sur, taking one last stop before the City of Angels in Pismo Beach, renting bicycles to see if the boys still remembered how to ride them. They did. Vivi rode in her daddy’s basket.
We visited a monarch butterfly grove and saw the first butterflies from the Western population returning to their winter home from the Rockies. It reminded us of our home in Miami and our little milkweed garden. The monarch was the first species in our creature catalog, and we, especially Vivi, really love these butterflies. Tragically, this population of monarch butterflies has suffered staggering losses in recent years for a variety of reasons, most notably, you guessed it, habitat loss, and is nearing a record low.
We then drove to LA for about 10 days to tie up loose ends. There, we would sell our truck, go to the dentist, and send some more boxes back to Miami. We also got to spend time with dear friends in actual human homes, visiting the amazing Farmer’s markets, where we tried to figure out how much fruit to buy since we knew we couldn’t bring any of it out of the country. The highlights included celebrating Halloween, during which the kids dressed up in last-minute store-bought costumes and the adults ate pizza, hiking in the Santa Monica mountains, and enjoying the company of a superb herd of guinea pigs.
We had a pretty clear observation while driving through some of the most epic scenery in the world in Big Sur, California. It’s something we actually first noticed while driving through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the Canadian Rockies, but we didn’t pay much attention to it. We weren’t as excited as we normally would have been or should have been when encountering such majestic natural beauty. The kids preferred to stay in the car in places they would have normally been eager to explore. We, too, were feeling numb and exhausted. It was not what we expected to feel, but this was our truth. After recognizing this, it felt like time to change things up a bit.
So after so many months of nonstop movement, experiences, and epic nature, what we really needed was a place to rest and reset. We were totally knackered, as the Brits like to say. We needed a pause from the intensity of constant motion to allow for some inertia to set in.
We embraced modern aerial technology and boarded an airplane, not an Airstream, at LAX in mid-November to fly to one of our favorite countries on planet Earth. It’s a place we’ve been fortunate enough to visit many times, and since it’s familiar, we knew we could decompress for a bit and get more stability for our kids and ourselves. We could then make our plans to see some very unique and rare species that we knew the kids were excited to encounter.
This place, of course, is Costa Rica, where our initial plan was to mimic the three-toed sloth. It was time to lie low, go slow, and conserve our energy. We realized that, as beautiful as it can be, travelling such a distance for so long is not natural. All creatures need stillness and space. We are no exception. So we rested, found a new tempo, and just existed as a family.
Sloth mode proved to be rewarding. More home-cooked meals, warm ocean time, and tropical fruit smoothies. More tinkering with new ideas and projects for our next, wide-open chapter in life. Slowing things down allowed us to go inward and dream up new, exciting visions for the future. More on that later…
We reflected on the fact that we burned a lot of carbon getting here, which we hope to offset, in actual and karmic terms, as soon as possible. This is another reason for going deeper rather than wider. For so many reasons, we prefer to spend more time in one place, to get to know it really well, especially in a place like Costa Rica, which is so dense with life.
Our resolve to encounter and tell the stories of these species has grown stronger, but the pace at which we will travel needs to shift. We don’t envision Earth Parade as one crazy, non-stop, dizzying year on the road. That’s doable if you’re on a regular old world trip, doing touristy things like visiting the Eiffel Tower. It’s not really feasible when your goal is to encounter the rarest species on Earth, with three wildlings of your own. So a recalibration was necessary.
We now look at Earth Parade as a far longer, multi-year project that we hope will span cultures, continents, and childhoods. Perhaps it can also exist as a side project as we hunker down and plant roots somewhere? We shall see. We certainly want to be able to stop as needed to process, create, and smell the roses. But that doesn’t mean we want to quit. On the contrary, we are figuring out how to make it sustainable. After all, as long as we’re doing something that feels meaningful for the planet, bonding as a family, and having fun, why should the Parade stop?
If we’ve learned anything trying to encounter these rare wild creatures, it’s that yes, you need both preparation and luck. But more than anything, you need patience. The longer you can wait in a spot, ready and attentive, the more likely you are to encounter the creature you are hoping to see. The best hunters are patient. In fact, all of nature is patient. It’s a state of being that humanity, in its rush towards profits, power, and some fake idea of paradise, has left by the wayside. Yet, it remains a key unlock for all of life's pursuits.
So we’ll be patient with ourselves, and when ready, we’ll be going micro instead of macro, exploring smaller areas of this spectacular country, one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth. Just one little sliver of a rainforest here contains multitudes. We suspect that this relatively tiny landmass has much to teach us.
Pura Vida, friends.
Thank you so much for sharing your adventure! I love that it is evolving as you go. Enjoying the traveling, then realizing you need some extended time in one place. The unfolding is so exciting, yet nurturing, even for one who is living this vicariously (me!). Continued prayers for your adventure. Looking forward to more posts.
Enjoy to the fullest. What an adventure. Pura Vida !