TravelBio

From left, Carol (Johnathan), Matt and Lucas at Crissy Field in San Francisco In part 1 of my post on our West Coast road trip, I covered the stretch from San Diego up to Seattle. Since we spent that northbound journey inland, the plan was to drive back along the coast, all the way from northwest Washington through Oregon and California. Thanks to Lucas's temperamental Saturn, we made a few detours, but still managed to see most of the coastal highlights. The night we arrived in Seattle, my buddy Mike flew in to join us on the return journey. Carol continued on his motorcycle, with me, Lucas, and Mike leading the way in the Saturn, which at this point had racked up over 315,000 miles (we probably passed the 500k kilometer mark on the trip). From Seattle we drove around the Puget Sound, then cut into Olympic National Park near Port Angeles. The park has few through roads, but at least we'd see a corner of it along the 101. Partway through the park, the Saturn got cra...

Over the course of my second year of grad school Team Carol periodically discussed a post-graduation road trip. Team Carol, by the way, is the name of our basketball team, named after Johnathan, aka Carol. The other members are me, Lucas, Matt, and Chan. Lucas and Johnathan are also from the Midwest and didn't have any job or post San Diego plans lined up, so they were wide open. Matt is from San Francisco, and he'd probably head home for awhile, but also didn't have a job to rush into. Chan is from South Korea, and he had to head back for work soon after spring quarter, so he was out (plus he has a wife and kids). From left, me, Chan, Lucas, Johnathan (Carol), and Matt For most of the year, we tentatively planned to drive south into Mexico, all the way down the Baja Peninsula to Cabo and back. Lucas and Johnathan would take their motorcycles, and I would ride in Matt's car. During spring quarter, however, things changed. Johnathan had to fly to Texas fo...

I didn't have any major trips planned during my winter and spring quarter at UCSD--the furthest I traveled was a visit home to Ohio during spring quarter. I did manage to get out of San Diego occasionally, however, so I decided to create a separate post for those excursions. After the winter break trip to Europe, I was content to stay in San Diego the rest of January. But by February, I was already itching for a change of scenery. We had President's Day off on February 18th, so me and three friends from the same program drove out to the Salton Sea that weekend. I can't say that the Salton Sea was really the scenery that I was craving. I can say, however, that it was one of the most interesting places in Southern California I'd visited. Prior to visiting, I had never even heard of the Salton Sea. Few people in San Diego or LA have been, and it's far off the typical tourist radar. The Sea was actually dry lake bed until the beginning of the 20th century...