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 It used to be when I went away, as in leaving Minnesota, I missed any family members I left behind and sleeping in my own bed. And not much else. There just wasn't that pull, that tug of the heart that says there's no place like home, even after five years.

In fact, I'd fantasize about living wherever it was I happened to be visiting at the time. Coming back from two weeks in New York City, it was different this time. I certainly had no flights of fancy about living in the Big Apple. All I could think about was getting back to the Minne-apple.

Helping my daughter move to NYC for an internship required quick lessons in city living. It's one thing to go to NYC, eat out, see a few shows and shop when you can grab a cab. It's not quite as glamorous when you're figuring out subway routes, laundry, groceries and the everyday drudges of living. Oh, and what do you do if you lock yourself out or lose your purse before you know another single soul in such a ginormous city?

I've been going on and on lately about how much I enjoy getting around my new neighborhood on my own two feet. People are probably tired of hearing me go on and on about how much I love walking, now that I live near infrastructure that makes it so simple. So easy to get on your high horse when your car is sitting in the driveway for those times, like when it rains, or it's too windy or you need to get somewhere in a hurry.

Boy, that changes when your own two feet are the only option. Life in NYC is exciting, exhilerating even. But it was also exhausting and exponentially expensive. After one week my feet resembled ground beef. I yearned for the delicious luxury of climbing into my car and whizzing to Target. Call me soft.

It was more than that though. Forgive me all those readers living out in the western burbs, sure it's woodsy, watery and scenic, but it wasn't the way I roll. 

After only a few months living around the city lakes, I realized I'd found my niche, my tribe, whatever. I missed my neighbors and hood. I worried that I might miss the trees turning. I missed the cafes. I missed my morning walk around the lakes. 

I even ventured to think there's no place like Minneapolis. Who would have thought?

 When you've moved as much as I have, what you lack in rootedness and continuity, you make up for in opportunity. I've had the chance to live in so many places and houses seeped in history. 

Our second home in Kansas, the second time around, had a whimsical quality with its random-cut, indigenous limestone. The design came from a hasty sketch of a British farmhouse viewed from a foxhole. When the soldier came home he realized that vision at #1 St James Place, but in the very middle of the Midwestern US.

Our home in the hills of Herefordshire, England started out as its eponymous name, The Malt House, sometime in the 1700's but the beams were the product of extremely early efforts at recycling. Those timbers were first used on old ships and already had 500 years on them.

Our brick Italianate Victorian in Illinois came with a deed that started out with "I, A. Lincoln..." The house was built in 1874 but the lot was platted by a young surveyor that would later find a higher calling.

Now walking the dog by the woods in my newest neighborhood, little did I know I was following in the footsteps of Thoreau. Say what? Yep, it turns out that Henry David Thoreau left Walden and ventured out to Minnesota seeking the clean air and pristine waters of our state as a possible remedy for his tuberculosis. 

I can't imagine embarking on a journey in throes of such misery but apparently he kept up appearances to his young traveling companion, Horace Mann, Jr., convincing him that he was faring well. Stopping in Minneapolis, they stayed at Mrs. Hamilton's boarding house situated somewhere around what is now William Berry Park between Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet.

It seems that during his visit, Thoreau was intent on finding a species of wild crabapple that he had first spied in Illinois. A record of his pursuit of Malus coronaria is documented in Wild Fruits, Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript. Following instructions from several individuals he explored the ridge above Lake Calhoun looking for the wild apple but struck out.  Eventually he found a cluster of trees he was seeking on his own. 

Back in New England a year later, Thoreau died. Believing as he did that heaven was "under our feet as well as over our heads", I'm glad he got the chance to explore the area while it still had an air of wildness.

So now when I walk the dog along the trail that winds through the leafy triangle I wonder what he would have thought of Lake Calhoun and the woods along the parkway. Would he marvel at the downtown skyline mirrored in the waters? And what would he think of the buckthorn that mars the understory below the oaks and maples? 

 Did they know it was the night before Trash Day, a weekly Christmas Eve-like sort of celebration for urban wildlife on the prowl, when all thru the hood the folks roll out the goods?

It's not unusual to see a few raccoons skulking around our new neighborhood as the sun goes down. For the most part, they are discreet, padding on fingery little raccoon feet. But seven masked marauders coming up the driveway bold as you please?

Perhaps a band of younger brothers, not quite the portly size of the patriarchal types I see lumbering up the linden trees at dusk. These were a bit smaller and seemed to be working in unison, an organized operation meant to ravage, not the trash, but the dogwood berries drooping over the fence. 

Of course I grabbed my camera to capture the scene, and now that I live next to a fellow blogger (from that other paper across the way) I sensed a little friendly competition. Hey, she may travel to far flung places, but I am still known as the critter spotter. 

She graciously yelled across the yard that I was awfully brave moving in for a closer shot. My husband rolled his eyes from the porch and offered that I was only brave when it came to critters. You can be a bit braver with a zoom lens.

As I approached the group I figured they were preoccupied with pillaging and plundering the fruit, and they wouldn't mind my presence. And then I heard a low, throaty growl. I assumed one of our dogs, but no, there at my feet one of the gang was doing his best to look and sound menacing. And it kind of worked. I backed off a bit and tried to frame several at once while they struggled to stay balanced on the drooping branches while stripping the berries. It was quite a show.

Raccoons are one of those realities of urban life. While it's legal to trap and shoot them if they are damaging your property that doesn't work (or sound humane) in these tight spaces where they seem to thrive. You are left to outwit or just enjoy their antics.

Another painless way to enjoy raccoons may be social media. I've actually followed several raccoons on Twitter. Twitter is populated with quite a few humorous "animals" that share their thoughts as they go through their day. I haven't seen him for awhile but City Raccoon used to tweet his adventures as he ambled about... "scuffle, scuffle, ooh, sweet corn" and such.

When not availing themselves to your garden produce or garbage can, they like frogs, insects and unfortunately, bird eggs.

If you consult the Minnesota DNR they will tell you that making sure you don't leave unsecured garbage or pet food outside will go a long way in discouraging their appearances and anti-social behavior. Speaking of social, don't attempt to pet them or keep them as pets. They can get pretty nasty with those claws. According to the DNR, you should worry more about rabies in skunks than raccoons but it's still a good idea not to tangle with either.

My neighbor may have got the best raccoon shot later that week after all, she caught one standing upright on the diving board with arms outstretched. Darn.

 Starting a new regime making the 3-mile circuit around the city lakes has been quite the change from the lonely life at the end of the cul de sac. Yikes, so many people. Yet, so peaceful. 

At first glance the walking trail is all about the lake. The sailboats rock and sway in the breeze with the tinkly-jingle of the riggings. The buoys bob like oversized Christmas balls and flags flap. Canvas snaps. Planes power down overhead.

But as you merge onto the trail, it's all about the people, and the dogs. 

All sizes and shapes in sweaty athletic clothing. Lone joggers leaving you with the rhythmic kush-kush of their sneakers, often trailing canines in a never ending combination of snouts and tails; feathery, coiling or silky fur connecting the two.

The walkers go solo, pair up and occasionally filling the sidewalk in threes, plus dogs. It leans heavy toward women twosomes, couples coming in second. And for a brief moment as they near, you catch a breathy bit of the ensuing conversation before it passes by, doppler-like, bits of conversation making for a patchwork of human drama and humdrum.

"Someone told me that..."

"I guess there's an obligation if you're in a relationship..."

"It's the eggplants and peppers that seem to be suffering the most..."

"Unless they want to live in Canada..."

"Vertigo..."

"in the divorce according to the custody arrangement..."

"I must have spent $700 dollars keeping my father's feet warm...."

"I had a deuce three suit..."

" I'm like, yeah...."

And you're left wondering as these people, circling in unison work out their issues while working out their bodies by the blue background of the rippled waters and nondescript shrubbery. A long time ago, like many coastal inhabitants, I used to sit and watch the waves of the Pacific, the rising and falling metronome of the breakers, it was cheap therapy. I've missed those waves and wondered how inlanders managed without them. Walking the lake every morning now, I get it.

I can go east. Or I can west. Heck, north or south for that matter. Bob Seger may have had a directional dilemma deciding which way to go but I just feel spoiled for choices.

It's all about this wonderful thing called the sidewalk.

We can tell people to get out and walk for their health but without good infrastructure that walk is bound to be an uphill journey. 

Just yesterday the Star Trib reported on the population shift out of the burbs. As part of that trend, now that we're living in the city, we simply walk out our door and head off to explore, eat, shop or just walk to be walking, all made easy by something so simple as a strip of concrete.

When we first moved to the burbs five years ago I remember asking the realtor if I could walk to Wayzata from the house we were considering.  She assured me I could. But when the snow finally melted I found it was possible but not very pleasant. Walking along a busy highway sharing the bike lane with the daily tour de tonka, next to drivers engaged in animated conversation on their cells, was an arduous undertaking. 

Way too late I found that home had a walk score of 3 out of 100.

I felt captive in the cul de sac. I found I had to drive to take a walk. Now studies show it is the unhealthiest place to be. Once prized for privacy and safety it turns out they are the least conducive to exercise and human interaction. 

As I traverse the alphabets and numbers of the gridded streets of Minneapolis, I may not run into otters and turkeys that were frequent subjects of this blog before. Although I've been told there are deer and foxes, even eagles about. I do see a future of getting to know the raccoons and crows a lot better. Their knack for urban adaptation begs deeper inspection.

I do miss the critters but find I'm no longer alone in the garden save for them. 

The saddest fact about the old cul de sac was the lack of garden give and take. I no longer pass by the yearly pot of pink impatiens and nondescript shrubbery and sigh. Now I never know what horticultural enthusiast and endeavor I may come upon as I turn each corner; a boulevard planting of labeled hostas, 10-foot tall nodding sunflowers, an explosion of lilies, it's all good.