day 3: redding to portland

There's no turning back now. This is really happening. 

It was not until the third day that moving to Green Bay felt real. Up until this point, it felt like we were on vacation and that we would eventually turn around and head back home because it is not unreasonable to drive from Irvine to Redding (I know this because my friend is from Redding and her mom just did it). 

We learned that the last In-N-Out on the 5 is in Redding, so we stopped there before heading out to Portland.  

Having driven almost the entire length of California, I will say that it is a beautiful state. Northern California looked and felt so different from Southern California, or at least Orange County. I didn't realize how diverse California was, both culturally and topographically, until we drove through it.   

We could not believe how rural it was in northern California, and more than once, we commented that with all the farmland, it felt like we were in Virginia or Minnesota (except with hills). 

You can barely see it, but that signs says "Oregon welcomes you." 

Drew has a couple friends in Portland, so we are taking a couple days to eat vegan food and donuts. 

day 2: gilroy and san francisco

We left Monterey for Gilroy, which is famous for its annual garlic festival. We missed the festival by a few days, but we stopped anyway and bought some garlic and smoked garlic olives. 

From there, we headed up to San Francisco, where we took a break and ate some ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery, which I recently saw on this list of 27 ice cream places in the world that you have to visit. It was well worth the stop and it was quite possibly the best ice cream I'd ever eaten in my life, which I guess is why it was on this list anyway.

After our break, we wove our way through the streets of San Francisco to the Golden Gate bridge. 

 

Before driving across it, we stopped at the viewing area to first walk across part of it. 

It was really windy, and I will admit that it was cold and we were underdressed.

  

We saw fewer palm trees in central and northern California, and instead, we saw a lot of these trees:

After San Francisco, we headed north to Redding to stay the night. 

day 1: california to wisconsin

A few months ago, when Drew and I were planning our route from California to Wisconsin, we said to each other "Hey, do you know what would make a 2100 mile cross country road trip even better? Driving up the California coast, some of which will be on a two lane highway that's full of twists and turns so that we'll only be able to drive about 30 mph, and adding about 500 miles to the trip!" I'm kidding. It was more like "Sooooo, I know we already have a long distance to drive, but everyone talks about how driving up the coast is a thing to do and it's really pretty and this is probably our only chance to do it, so what do you say?" 

We said yes.

And I'm glad we did.

We started off on the 405 and took it to LA, where we then got on the 101 and drove through Ventura and Santa Barbara, and then we got on the 1 (also known as the Pacific Coast Highway, or the PCH) in San Luis Obispo (gawd, I sounded sooo Californian right there). Then Drew took the wheel because I hate twists and turns and curves in the road, even more so than bumper to bumper traffic and crazy drivers who almost merge into us twice, and I got to enjoy the view.    

We have to hand it to the state park system and the CA Department of Transportation or whoever because there were several places to stop along the PCH to take pictures and enjoy the view.

Some of the birds had no fear. That's Drew's hand there. Maybe he put it there for scale? 

We also drove through Big Sur, which is well known because it's really beautiful, but I've heard of it because of its grueling marathon that takes place every April. The halfway point is the Bixby Bridge, and there is a pianist who plays Chariots of Fire in the middle of it. 

It is unlikely that I will ever run across the Bixby Bridge, but my friend Sam did a couple years ago. 

We made it up to Monterey at the end of day one.  

goodbye uci

On the day before we left for Wisconsin, Drew and I walked around UCI and snapped some pictures. Our first stop was to the Anthill Pub for one last pint of beer. I must have been looking professorial because I think it was the first time that I didn't get carded. 

We walked through Aldrich Park, which is in the center of campus, on our way home. It is a really nice park, and back in the way when we had more time to linger over lunch, we would have picnics outside. 

Even though time became more scarce, I sometimes headed to the park to read or to have a quick walk.  

UCI's mascot is Peter the anteater, so Drew and I stopped by the bookstore to pick one up.

 We also stopped by Social Science Plaza for a quick picture by the fountain.

One of the first apartments I lived in was in Palo Verde, one of the housing communities for graduate students. Every day for nearly five years, I crossed this bridge to get to campus.  

On a clear day, you can see the mountains off in the distance from the bridge. 

When I first arrived at UCI, I thought the number of years that it would take to get a Ph.D. felt like an eternity. Older graduate students told me that the time would go fast, and at first, I didn't believe them. But, just like many other things, they were right. The time goes by so fast. One minute it feels like graduation is so, so far away and the next minute, you're packing up all your stuff and saying goodbye.  

leaving california

Drew and I are leaving California for Green Bay tomorrow morning. I don't think it's sunk in yet. I've waited so long time for this moment and while I'm happy to leave this place, at the same time, I'm also a little sad. I lived here for nearly eight years, so in some respects, it's hard to say good bye.

  

A dear friend from graduate school recently moved to Minnesota (interestingly, there are a few of us making the move from California to either Minnesota or Wisconsin). In her farewell to California facebook post, she began by saying something about how she came to California as an adult but grew up here. I can relate. I was 26 when I started graduate school, and I grew up a lot here. 

I wonder what I will miss about Southern California. Most of what I think I'll miss revolves around food. Lately, I've been asking myself such questions like: Why didn't I eat more California burritos? Why didn't I eat at In-n-Out more often? Why did I wait until my last year in California to discover banh mi? How come I didn't make it my mission to find the best fish taco? Why didn't I eat more dumplings? And so on. But then I remind myself that I just didn't have the time and that the reason I came out to California was to earn a Ph.D. and not eat my way through Orange County. In my state of food-related panic, I've been eating my weight in avocados, and I made two trips to In-n-Out in the past couple of weeks, which is more times than the past few years.  

 

Sometimes, I wonder if I'll miss the beach. Other times, I'm not so sure. I see the ocean a lot as I'm driving by or when I'm running, but I don't get to the beach too often anymore. Whenever I feel like having a beach day, it's when everyone else feels like going to the beach too, and dealing with the traffic, crowds, and parking is just too much of a hassle for me. 

I know I will miss the palm trees. I never get tired of seeing them. 

I recently showed Drew what I think is the most fantastic palm tree I've ever seen. It's just in this neighborhood in Irvine, and I discovered it on the way to get dumplings. 

On our last night in Irvine, we ate dinner at Royal Thai, got gelato at Gelato Paradiso, and had a nice walk on Laguna Beach, just enjoying the sand between our toes and the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach. I don't know how this tradition started, but anytime one of us (usually Drew) leaves for a significant period of time, this is what we do. So when we contemplated how we'd spend our last night in California, it wasn't at all difficult to decide what to do. After Laguna Beach, we headed home and went to one of our favorite spots near campus, the adirondack chairs at the top of University Hills. From there, we could just barely see the Disneyland fireworks. They go off every night at 9:30, and I can hear them from my apartment. It is odd to think that soon, my evenings will be silent. 

reverse culture shock

For the past few months, I've been thinking about whether I'll experience a reverse culture shock when I return to the Midwest. I wonder which aspects of Southern California were surprising to me at first but then eventually became commonplace and something I don't even think about anymore (like how people bring their dogs everywhere here, even into stores). 

One of the first things that comes to mind is open air shopping malls.   

Open air shopping malls fascinated me when I first came to California. This would never work in Minnesota, I thought. 

Above is the Irvine Spectrum, and below is Fashion Island. That's Drew sitting next to the fountain.

I was also fascinated with restaurants that had only outdoor seating. During the first few years of graduate school, I frequented Taco Mesa for Taco Tuesdays and it took me a while to get used to the fact that my friends and I could eat outside year round. One of my fondest memories is dining at Taco Rosa with a group of about 20 people, during my first year. We couldn't all fit inside, so we sat outside. I think it was the end of October, maybe the beginning of November. We were all transplants, so we thought the weather was beautiful, and in hindsight, we probably looked a little strange (remember that Californians consider temperatures below 60 degrees to be "cold").  

Not all of my observations are weather-related. Last weekend, at Fashion Island, I commented to Drew that we will soon live in a place where Macy's will be the nicest department store in the mall. Here, compared to Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, Macy's is on the "lower" end, at least at the malls closest to where we live. Some of my other observations are also class-related. I drive down the freeway amidst very fancy and expensive cars. I take yoga classes with people who wear nothing but Lululemon. I had a friend who pointed out that there are few places like Orange County, where the contrast between the rich and the poor is so stark, and I'm inclined to agree.  

Another thing I noticed right away when I moved here is that you can buy alcohol in Target. You can also buy alcohol on Sundays (I didn't figure this one out myself; somebody told me). I've never done either one of those things, but I like having the option. That's Drew there in Target, checking out the whiskey.   

    

I've also been thinking about what sorts of adjustments I'll make to fit in again in the Midwest. I'll have to stop saying "the" before the name of a freeway. I will be able to say "pop" again instead of "soda." Some of the less trivial changes I think I'll need to make when I live in Wisconsin are 1) be nice and 2) don't drive like a maniac. Whenever I go home, I always have to remind myself to be nice. I have to remind myself to excuse myself and apologize if I bump into somebody but even if I just almost bump into somebody. I also have to remind myself to drive less aggressively and avoid barreling through four-way stops and cutting people off on the freeway. I have to remind myself to drive Minnesota nice and not California cutthroat.

on traffic

I always knew that my time in California would be temporary. Given the nature of graduate school and academia, I knew better than to get attached to Southern California. And in many respects, this was not difficult. In a previous post, I talked about how much I missed winter and a lack of seasons. By my standards, the past 8 years have been a perpetual summer. 

I won't miss the insanely high cost of living. Last weekend, I met up with a friend, and among other things, told him to guess how much we're going to pay to rent a one bedroom apartment in Green Bay. He guessed $1500. I told him to guess lower. He dropped down to $1200 and just about fell out of his chair when I told him $495. 

Perhaps most of all, I won't miss the traffic. Prior to moving to California, one of my friends (her grandma lived in Gardena so she was familiar with the area), told me that traffic would be one of the most surprising aspects of Southern California. She said that no matter the time of day, I'd be shocked at how many people were out on the road. She was absolutely right.The first time I drove here was when I rented a car for my recruitment visit. I drove from Los Angeles to Irvine at one in the morning and when I wasn't busy being scared to death of getting into a car accident, I thought to myself "Where are all these people going? Why are there all these cars on the road?" I think I saw more traffic at 1 in the morning than I ever had in Minnesota (and did I mention that it was a 12-lane freeway? That's a lot of cars).   

Just as winter is to Minnesotans (and I'm guessing Wisconsinites), traffic is to Californians. It's just a way of life and you have to accept it. There are rush hours of course, but you can also encounter stop-and-go traffic at any hour of any day. Los Angeles is 40 miles from Irvine, but sometimes it is 45 minutes away and sometimes it is 3 hours away.    

A few years ago, my dad complained about traffic in Rochester. I laughed at him and told him to stop complaining. You have no idea, Dad, no idea. Then he and my mom came out to visit, and when coming back from visiting relatives in Oceanside, we got stuck on the 5. Oceanside is about 50 miles away, but I think the trip that night took about 3 hours. Of course, I wasn't at all shocked by this, but my dad turned to me and said "huh, I get what you mean now. The traffic in Rochester is nothing compared to this." I refrained from saying "I told you so, Dad." 

As is our routine, Drew drove us back from Oceanside a couple weekends ago, and I was in the passenger seat (I do most of the driving, but on any trip over 30 miles, I drive there and he drives back). As expected, we hit traffic on the way home and the 5 became a parking lot. I laughed it off and took some pictures, knowing that it wouldn't be long until it would no longer be a way of life.