Heading to California

These are pictures which I took back in 2016, when my son and I went on what likely was our biggest trip out to see the West. We had just crossed over from Nevada somewhere in the desert, and were on our way to the Yosemite Valley and the national park there. 

Okay, well, it's time for another trip.

This one is a bit different, because it is work-related. Not a vacation, really. In fact, there is only one day where I am scheduled to have fully off, although I do hope to visit some things in between work shifts. Not sure if it will work out like that.

We shall see. 

In any case, it should offer a bit of a respite from the normal, mind-numbing routine. I will have off entirely on Sunday, the 28th (at least that is my scheduled day off), so I am looking forward to that, at the very least. Plus, it's not often that I have gotten the opportunity to travel to California. In fact, this is only the third time in my life when I managed to get to the Golden State, and the first time that I will get to visit Los Angeles and the surrounding area. The closest that I came before was in 2016, when my son and I visited California. We made it to Yosemite National Park, Sacramento, San Francisco and Oakland, and the Redwoods. On the way further south, we drove a bit through Napa Valley, which really felt like a privilege. And we went as far south as Bakersfield, which I believe is only a couple of hours or so drive from Los Angeles. 

Originally, I had planned to visit Los Angeles, if only for a day or so. But our Western trip got cut short by one day. There were adjustments that I made before that trip, and that was one of the things that needed to be sacrificed, unfortunately. A couple of others that I had originally thought we could visit, but ultimately couldn't, were Mount Shasta and Crater Lake. 

Some day, hopefully, we will make it there.

This work-related trip, however, will offer me a chance to finally visit Los Angeles and the area. So I will apparently make it there just months before reaching 50.

Ironically, I realized not long ago that out of the three times (including this trip) when I visited California, two of the three were all expenses paid (or at least the airline ticket, hotel, and food). This one is being paid for by my job at Tiffany and Company. The first time I went to California was back in February of 1996 in San Francisco. As a precondition to go to this journalism conference, I agreed to become the Sports Editor for The Torch, the school newspaper at Bergen Community College. Both were an honor to accept. And as it turned out, I had one almost entire day off in addition to the Sunday, when we all had off and took a bus tour of the city. I was a young man more or less in the peak of my health, and a trip to San Francisco, a city which I had long wanted to visit, felt like such an enormous privilege! That trip was a lot of fun, and I still have very pleasant memories from that trip, and that general time in my life (1996 was particularly sweet for me, generally). Indeed, I am still quite grateful for having gone on that visit to the City by the Bay. 

Right now, I am hopeful that this trip to another California city will go nearly as well as that trip went, well over 28 years ago now! 

Hard to believe. 

That one was just such a blast. Hopefully, this one will be, as well!