Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tQ25qJ2m49Qe8jDK8
Ever since I was young, California always seemed “exotic” and “different” – I’ve always associated the entire state with the Tony Hawk video games and the 90s pop punk scene. This was sort of my first or second real visit to the state – I drove through LA to get to the Desert Trip concert back in 2016 so was never really in SoCal, while I was in the Bay last summer for my cousin’s wedding. So I hadn’t really been there long enough to dispel my preconceived notions of the state.
After Vegas, we headed over to Palm Springs – it was my first time back here since the Desert Trip concert 4 years ago, so it was awesome to see the town again. We used it as a base for Joshua Tree. Palm Springs itself is a pretty cool resort town with really nice views of the surrounding hills/mountains. The food was also stellar here, as it should be given that it’s a vacation town for rich LA people.
Joshua Tree was decent, but definitely overhyped. Part of it was that we were seeing it after a bunch of really cool national parks in Utah and Arizona, and part of it was because of the natural propensity of Californians to overhype everything in their state – the prime example here is how the Red Hot Chili Peppers literally only sing about the state of California. That said, even despite the 115 degree farenheit heat, it was a pretty cool day trip. The Joshua trees themselves look like Dr. Seuss drawings, and the barren landscape that was filled with boulders reminded me a ton of Hampi back in India. We also saw the memorial to Gram Parsons of The Byrds – the story of how his ashes got scattered here is amazing. I don’t think I can phrase it better than Wikipedia did so I’ll just copy that here: “To fulfill Parsons’ funeral wishes, Kaufman and a friend stole his body from Los Angeles International Airport and in a borrowed hearse, they drove it to Joshua Tree. Upon reaching the Cap Rock section of the park, they attempted to cremate Parsons’ body by pouring five gallons of gasoline into the open coffin and throwing a lit match inside. What resulted was an enormous fireball. The police gave chase but, as one account puts it, the men “were unencumbered by sobriety,” and they escaped”.
After Joshua Tree, we drove over to San Diego. Ever since I first saw Anchorman back in around 6th grade, I have always wanted to make it over to this city. I surprisingly really really liked San Diego. In a weird way it reminded us of Manhattan, and I could see parts of how it was like Miami (based off friends’ social media posts since I have never been) and San Francisco (the coast and hills). We went to Coronado which was a swanky and nice beachside resort island off the coast of San Diego. Had some really good food here as well, and after Steve left on the 8th, I had an extra day here before driving up to LA. I mostly lazed around but did go to Balboa Park, which was a surprisingly cool park with a ton of Spanish architecture. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this city (up there with Philly and SF after NYC in terms of my favorite American cities), and can definitely see myself going to business school here in 3-4 years if UCSD is good enough where I’m not too prideful to avoid it but bad enough for me to get a free ride off my GMAT scores.
Spent a day in LA after San Diego. I’ve only ever heard terrible things about LA so went in with super low expectations, but to be honest it was pretty nice. Granted, I only hung out in the Venice Beach/Santa Monica area, but it was cool to just walk there for most of the day. That said, it was definitely way less crowded due to COVID, so much like the national parks, I definitely would have liked it less if it wasn’t for that. Definitely prefer San Diego but I do see the appeal of LA.
After LA, I drove up to Ventura, just southeast of Santa Barbara, to go surfing with a friend from college who lived in SB. This was both of our first times surfing, and he had to go back to his cushy lawyer job after this morning surf lesson. Surfing is awesome, and is definitely way easier than it looks. It also helps that wiping out is a ton of fun. But it is really hard to be consistent – when jumping up to stand after paddling, if my feet weren’t perfectly aligned I would fall over within 2 seconds, but if I timed the jump right I could ride the wave pretty much all the way to the shore. Honestly I’m more and more convinced that I’ll move to Cali for grad school after I un-retire in 3 years and at that point I’ll definitely take up surfing. Not quite as fun as diving in terms of aquatic activities but still up there.
After this, I went up to Santa Barbara to have this bomb seafood burrito that Mark recommended at Los Agaves, which was probably the best thing I ate in California. Then I began the long slog of a drive up to Mountain View…I avoided the Pacific Coast Highway drive because I didn’t want to get to Mountain View at like 9pm (got there around 5pm instead), and I had already seen amazing coast lines in both Southern France and Bali back in March so the coast, as gorgeous as it looked, wasn’t a *top* priority for me.
Met up with my Burning Man friend Greg at Mountain View, and after crashing at his place for the night, we left the next morning for Pinnacles National Park. We got a couple of ~7 hour hikes in 100+ degree weather, which honestly was nowhere near as tough as it sounds. The first day, we did the High Peaks trail, which was a super unique trail at the top where you’re leaning against a railing and tilting your body because of the boulders perching over you. The next day, we did the North Shalon trail, which had great overlooking views of the entire park. The High Peaks trail was about 1500 feet of elevation and ~10 miles, while the North Shalon was probably closer to 8 miles but went over 2000 feet of elevation. It was slightly annoying that, because the shuttle was not running, we had to walk 2 miles to the hike starting point from our campsite.
This was my first time camping since Burning Man, and going with Greg definitely caused me to reminisce more about last year…while it does suck that it got cancelled this year I’m still so glad that I got to go last year and hopefully can go again in the future. I will say that Pinnacles as a whole was a pretty cool park (ton of weirdly shaped pointy boulders strewn around due to it lying on the San Andreas fault), but definitely wasn’t an amazing standout park like Grand Canyon, Bryce, or Zion. Definitely glad I did it, but this is definitely a park to do if you’re in the area and have time, as opposed to going out of the way to do.
After a couple of nights of camping, we got back to his place where we were able to rinse off the dirt and become ~50 shades lighter. I then stopped by my aunt’s place Saratoga and had Indian food for the first time in two weeks before heading to my cousin’s place up north in El Cerrito, which is right next to Berkeley. This was my cousin who got married last August, so my first year of retirement (really 11 months at this point) have come full circle, starting in the Bay Area prior to going to Burning Man and now going back to the Bay Area.
One thing that is really cool about California is how all these amazing coastal cities are all literally within 30 minutes away from incredible hiking trails in forests and hills. It’s a big reason why (the other reason being the fact that I was holed up at home for 3 months in quarantine) every girl here is so attractive…it’s hard not to be when you have all these opportunities to socially exercise.
I spent a day walking around SF and enjoyed it just as much as I did last time back in August just before Burning Man. I know it probably sucks living there but it’s just such a fun city to visit and walk around, even with COVID. I did a little loop down Filmore, along the bay, towards Coit Tower and then down Lombard. Got a good workout (wearing flip flops up and down the hills was not the smartest choice), and it was weird since I saw the same 4 or 5 people multiple times while walking around the city. After that, saw a college friend who’s getting his MBA at Haas and went to this really good Peruvian restaurant for dinner.
The next day, I did a solo trip to Muir Woods National Monument to see a forest of redwood trees. I mean, it was nice, but I don’t know…definitely a bit overrated and worth seeing only if you have time in the area. Like the trees were tall and impressive, but at the end of the day it’s just another dime a dozen forest that has hiking trails. I was thinking of doing the 10 mile partial Dipsea trail but decided against it and just did two smaller and easier 4-5 mile treks that each hit ~1k feet in elevation, since I wanted to get back earlier to plan out the Yosemite trip. Even moreso than Joshua Tree or Pinnacles (Pinnacles was great but still falls in this tier), Muir Woods was something that I’d only recommend if you had ample time in the area. I think one thing I’ve learned about myself is that I only prefer hikes when they have outrageously nice or unique views – otherwise it’s just replaceable hills and forests to me.
That night, I met up with a few more Burning Man friends for a house dinner party. In a true case of why the coastal cities are all the same and how much California has in common with NYC, this get together had copious amounts of both white claw and cocaine present. I did not partake in either as I was leaving with my cousin and his wife the next morning at 6am for Yosemite and was driving, but it was nice to catch up with my BMan friends and also meet some new people…this was the first time I hung out with people I didn’t know since Bali! One of my friends there used to run a catering company and is a legit amazing chef, and he cooked this incredible Chinese duck dinner for us.
Yosemite was stunning. More than any other place I visited, this is one that I definitely want to go back to again. We got in Friday afternoon and drove around the valley to various view points and then did a quick and easy hike – the Yosemite Falls trek, but only to the Columbia Rock viewpoint which is about ~1k feet up and a couple of miles in, so like 1/3 of the overall trek. The next day we did the Cloud’s Rest trail. This was a 15 mile slog that was 95% mediocre (just trees and hills since we were starting from behind the valley), but totally worth it for the last mile leading up to the Cloud’s Rest viewpoint. There’s this really cool bridge section at the very end that is probably a few hundred meters long. Couldn’t have been more than 7-10 feet in width, but on each side was a steep 10k foot dropoff to the valley. I basically sprinted up this bridge, jumping across the rocks, to get to the end point – was honestly the single highlight I would take from this trip. It was just so incredibly exhilarating. And once we got to the final view point, we were gifted these amazing 360 degree views of the park, with the valley on one side and the rolling mountains (to be fair they would be hills in a North Indian/Nepalese context) on the other 3 sides. Much like Zion, these hills/mountains were all just stark and desolate boulders, with trees growing on top. Overall, I found this hike to be surprisingly easy, but I think part of that was my cousin and his wife going at a slower pace which required me to make more stops than I otherwise would have taken, allowing me to recover between each spurt. We wound up completing this trail in like ~9 hours.
On our final day, we drove up the Glacier Point road and did a quick and easy Taft Point trail which had some of the best views in the park – and this is saying something since the entire park is filled with amazing views. We then drove up to Glacier Point to get another phenomenal overlook before heading back to my cousin’s place, with my flight being the next afternoon.
The main reason I’d love to visit Yosemite again is that, moreso than any other park, there are just so many cool hikes to do there. The three main ones I’d love to do at some point in the future are the Four Mile hike (which is like a 10 mile roundtrip from the valley all the way up to Glacier Point), the complete Yosemite Falls hike, and of course the Half Dome hike, where you go up the final 400 feet in elevation while clutching these cable wires to help with the steep incline. In terms of all the natural sights I’ve seen, I would rank them as: Ladakh, Yosemite, Zion, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Bryce, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Joshua Tree/Pinnacles, and Muir Woods.
No real plans next, though I do know that Turkey is currently open for US citizens. I think my next 1 or 2 trips might still be domestic national park road trips but we’ll see.