When my husband and I moved back to Montana three years ago, I fantasized about living far from town. We'd settle outside the city boundaries, where the Milky Way sparkles clear as a river and red-tailed hawks bank over bunchgrass meadows. My (imaginary) dogs could run over our five acres, frolicking in the ponderosa pines. That was the plan. But we didn't do it. And it's my father's fault. He kept me on track. Photo: iStockphoto. Before he retired a few years ago, my father spent more than 30 years as an electrical engineer for Bay Area Rapid Transit, the …

This cold morning at the Presidio, elegant terns wheel over the lagoon at the edge of the San Francisco Bay, screeching like a fleet of squeaky bicycles. In the distance, fog blots out the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. On the strip of beach closest to the water, dogs chase tennis balls into the surf. And in restored sand dunes, volunteers yank non-native plants and pile them in trash bags. Around them, buckwheat blooms, its round purple globes adding color to the gray day. The Presidio. Photo: National Park Service. Not long ago, this patch of shoreline was a …