Storming the Castle

When the Chicago Bears schedule was released earlier this spring, R and I talked about going to watch them play the Raiders in Vegas on September 28. A few of his March Madness buddies also expressed interest. But then we saw the ticket prices ($400+ 🤯) and decided to table that idea.

Fast forward to August when we hatched the plan to spend the weekend in Las Vegas as a stopover on the way to Great Basin National Park, regardless of whether or not we actually made it to the game in person or if any of his friends joined us. We set our price limit, and then R started tracking ticket prices on Ticketmaster, Vivid Seats, and SeatGeek like a day trader on Wall Street. 

End of Beginning

And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it

Another version of me, I was in it

I wave goodbye to the end of beginning

(Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye)

You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man...

Have you heard this song from Djo (aka Joe Keery, "Steve" from Stranger Things)? It's a super catchy tune that went viral on TikTok last year. Although our "end of beginning" in Chicago was almost *25* years ago, we've tried to come back at least once a year ever since. With so many family and friends still here, that line from the bridge of the song rings true - you can take us out of the city but not the city out of us... 

Resilience and Beauty

We started the long drive back home around 8:00AM this morning. By 9:30AM, we reached the Mono Lake Vista Point and hopped out of the car to take some photos.

Like a Rolling Stone

We arrived home from DC on Wednesday night. Not being ones to gather moss, we were on the road again less than 36 hours later for a quick weekend trip up US-395N to the Lake Tahoe area for the wedding of our friends' son.

This is what ChatGPT gave me when I asked for a rolling stone with no moss 🤣

Circle the Wagons

In the 1800s, a wagon would have taken 8-10 weeks to travel between Independence, MO and Santa Fe, NM along the Santa Fe Trail. Thankfully, we were able to drive it in four days and see/do lots of fun things along the way!

Altogether, we spent 11 days on this trip - two in Chicago, two visiting my parents, and seven on the road between Illinois and California.

3117 miles

Where the Streets Have No Name

In an effort to pad our stamp and unit totals, we decided to make our long drive home even longer with a detour to Joshua Tree National Park. Well, even though it added almost another 60 miles, it's still kinda on the way, isn't it?! 😜

515 miles, 8.5 hours

Slam Diego

Last year I traveled to Orlando for a conference, and as a bonus, I got to see alligators and manatees at Canaveral National Seashore. This year's conference was a little closer to home, so rather than suffer in traffic on the 5, my colleagues and I took the Pacific Surfliner train to San Diego on Saturday instead. Amtrak business class is totally the way to go!

After arriving at the Santa Fe Depot downtown, we took the Green Line trolley ($2.50 in the Pronto app) to the Seaport Village stop near our hotel. Then we headed across the street to grab lunch at Kansas City Barbeque, which was used as the location for the "sleazy bar scene" from Top Gun.

Maybe this pic will ring a bell...

Ink-iversary

If the traditional gift for 25 years of marriage is silver and 50 years is gold, then we marked the occasion of our 28th wedding anniversary with ink. National park passport stamps from Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center, to be precise!

However, our first stop was actually for brunch at La Playa Soul Kitchen. Since seeing the write-up online about this place a couple months ago, we have been wanting to make the trek over to Port Hueneme to check them out. Today was the perfect opportunity - we will drive anywhere for good food!

¡Sí, Se Puede!

After our visit to Lake Mead NRA last month, I was only one unit short of achieving the National Park Travelers Club Bronze Master Traveler Award for 2022. The closest place we could easily drive for a passport stamp to satisfy the requirement was César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, CA, about two hours away. 

¡Sí, Se Puede!  Yes, we can!

So on my first day of Christmas vacation, my true love came with me on an impromptu road trip!

Switching Sides

After the game last night, we came back to the Cal for a late dinner at Market Street Cafe. Since they start serving their oxtail soup after 9:00PM, folks were already lined up around the corner into the casino. By the time we got seated, it was almost 10:30PM, but R's oxtail soup and my chili rice came to the table pretty fast. Needless to say, neither one of us was hungry this morning. 

So we skipped breakfast, checked out, and hit the road back to California. But instead of going home, we headed straight for the big rivalry game between #7 USC and #16 UCLA at the Rose Bowl, with a quick stop at Freddy's in Victorville for lunch.

Up in the Air

After saying our goodbyes to RH and C this morning, we headed over to R's cousin's house for breakfast. The navigation app sent us on some small, local roads, but the drive through the forest was quite pretty. We had gotten to see Y, C, and the kids back in July at the family reunion, but it was nice to be together again, quick visit or not. 

Exploring Cabrillo

From Mission Bay, it was just a short drive to Point Loma and historic Liberty Station. Formerly known as the Naval Training Center (NTC), after its closure in 1997, Liberty Station was transformed into a shopping, dining, arts and entertainment hub. 

When we were here in 2018 for a campus tour of UCSD for J, we had a late lunch at Liberty Public Market. R and I came back again today to see what else we could try.

My Heart Will Go On

CANOE DAY! 

We were up early this morning to grab breakfast. The hotel was actually serving hot items in the breakfast area, so that was a nice change from the previous COVID precautions in place.

After loading up our stuff in the car, we checked out and headed over to De Anza Cove for the morning festivities.

Nerd Olympics

R and I drove down to San Diego today to watch M and J participate in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Pacific Southwest Symposium (PSWS). 

Engineering students from ASCE chapters throughout the region gather to showcase their technical skills and compete against other schools in events like Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge. There are also non-technical events such as basketball. Guess who's participating in that one?! 

M is one of the project leads for UCLA Concrete Canoe. And since they haven't held an in-person conference for the past two years due to the pandemic, we wanted to see him paddle in his final year.

 

Will it float?

An Unexpected Journey

A week ago, R's college roommate G half-jokingly floated the idea of going to watch NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, in particular to see the Chicago Bulls' 2nd round draft pick and fellow Illini, Ayo Dosunmu. Despite the short notice, R found someone to switch work days with him, G was able to rearrange his daughters' schedules, and my colleague graciously offered to tend my lab experiment. By Monday night we were a go for launch!

Unfortunately, the bummer was that it wouldn't be all 8 of us. G's wife just started a new position and couldn't play hooky from work, and J had already planned a trip to Seattle with his buddies. 

And what about M?  Having turned 21 at the end of last year, of course he was all in from the moment he heard "Vegas!"

Field of Lights

After returning to the hotel this afternoon, we had enough time to take a much-needed nap after our kayak tour and then get cleaned-up for our evening activity, Sensorio (aka "that Field of Light thingy") in Paso Robles. 

So, what exactly is Sensorio? A walk-through art installation just east of Paso Robles on the north side of CA-46, Sensorio is an array of solar-powered fiber-optic lights "planted" on the hillsides throughout the venue. At night the spheres are illuminated with changing colors. 

7:37PM

Redemption

Given how our kayaking adventure in Hawaii turned out last summer, you might think that I would not pick up a paddle ever again. And yet, there we were at the marina in Morro Bay State Park at 9:00AM this morning, getting ready to embark on a half-day kayak tour with Central Coast Outdoors.

However, this time I was hopeful that our experience would be much better than the last one since the waters of Morro Bay are protected from the open ocean by a four-mile long sandspit. And I was assured that the sit-inside kayaks are much harder to tip over than the sit-on-top kind. 

Morro Rock

Corona-cation

Life in the time of COVID...

It's been almost five months since that word became embedded in our vocabulary, along with "new normal" and "Zoom meeting". Within the span of a few days in mid-March, our family had completely "pivoted" by:

• Cancelling R's trip to Vegas with the guys for March Madness, M's spring break missions trip to Washington, DC, and J's and my trip to Illinois.
• Moving M out of his dorm at UCLA, with him finishing spring quarter of his sophomore year remotely from home.
• Finding out that the unplanned extension of J's spring break would morph into never returning to the high school and, sadly, a drive-thru graduation ceremony in place of the traditional pomp and circumstance.
• Working from home, although there are limits to the scientific experiments I can carry out from the kitchen table.

Chasing the Sun

How did this happen?! While we did have the opportunity to travel a bit this year, 2018 was definitely a bust for visiting new national park units. *sigh* But at least I was able to collect some new cancellations for my "Passport to Your National Parks" and actually almost have enough to earn an award from the National Park Travelers Club for this year. 

Tomorrow we're taking a campus tour of UC San Diego. But since we're so close, why not re-visit Cabrillo National Monument (and get a stamp)?

Gold Rush

We're starting another round of campus tours, this time with J. Two years ago, he was dragged along when M was visiting the colleges he was interested in. I'm hoping J got enough of an impression of those schools last time so that we won't have to make many repeat trips. Since he doesn't have school tomorrow, J and I will be checking out UC Davis. (R was left behind to hold down the fort.)

Instead of driving up, we flew in to Sacramento this morning and spent the day playing tourist, starting out in Old Town.