Redux

So apparently there's been some complaints about the lack of posting in my department.

I'm currently sitting in the living room of Emily's new home in Oregon. The weather is getting nicer as the day rolls on, which is a change from the cloudy morning.

The fact that yesterday was the last day of driving didn't quite sink in with me until we were in North-North California (I make that distinction as anywhere at least 2-3 hours north of San Francisco, which most people already consider North California). Up there the terrain is mountainous, like the Rockies. We got a nice view of Mt. Shasta for a good portion of the drive.

The last 3 days marked my first time ever in California. I bragged about that 1 hour in, while I was talking to a stranger at Lake Tahoe. To make conversation, she asked if I vacation there often. It turns out she didn't either, as she was from Kentucky. Going along with the spirit of the trip, the Tahoe visit was an unplanned detour that came about as we were descending into California and saw the lake on our map and saw lots of signs for the attraction along the road. The city/region in and around San Francisco was amazing. Part of it may have been the fact that I was able to meet up with friends. I met my friend Geoff from college for lunch. Before we went out he gave me a quick tour of the office he works at, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. For anyone unfamiliar with that name, they were the designers of the Sears Tower. It was good to catch up with him and he showed me the area around his office. After he went back to work, I saw some architectural gems including the Contemporary Jewish Museum, The California Academy of Sciences, and the deYoung Museum. After a day of exploring, I went out to Mountain View to visit my high school friend Rich and his wife for dinner. They had just moved out there about 2 weeks before I go there, and Rich will be starting to work for Google this fall.

Before San Francisco, we were in Salt Lake City, where the stay was too short to leave an impression on me (about 8 hours from arriving to leaving the hotel). I will say the drive through the desert-like salt-lands was interesting. Before Salt Lake City, we were in Denver, which I described as a utopia. It seemed walkable from where we stayed, which was South of the downtown area, all the way to the north side, where Dave and I went to a Rockies game at night. Couple that with clean streets, happy people, and a plethora of outdoors activities near the city, and you get Denver, CO. Kansas City was another city with a short stay, but like Salt Lake City, there were interesting parts of the drive to and fro. I think the drive there was eye-opening, because about an hour into it was when I really realized what I was doing and how far away I was. I had been wanting to experience that feeling of driving through miles of flat farmland because I had never done so.

Chicago was one of my favorite stops. Like San Francisco, I got to meet up with friends for lunch and dinner. I met my fraternity brother Micah for lunch, and my high school friend Andrew for Dinner. Besides an occasional Facebook conversation, I don't think I had talked to Andrew much since I graduated high school, which is over 8 years ago. It was good to catch up on things over some beers. He was pretty impressed by the walking Dave and I did that day, which started in River North and ended at Soldier's Field (with lots of stops along the way). We did the Chicago Architectural Foundation's river tour, which was all it was hyped up to be. I had debated going on their "hard core" tour, which is only offered bi-monthly, and went from 9:30 to around 5, and included a 75 minute drive to the Farnsworth House, one of the masterpieces of Mies van der Rohe. For any non-architects, Mies can be described as one of the major mid-century modern architects in the U.S., whose work was known for being very rectangular, minimal, and using glass and steel (usually black) for materials. Well it was a good thing I just did the 1.5 hour river tour because it gave me a tan and more time to randomly explore Chicago, including Mies's famous skyscrapers and some other new architectural works around Millenium Park.

Getting to Chicago was quite a trip. Getting there from Philadelphia in one day definitely made the rest of the driving days seem pretty short. The stop in Pittsburgh was great, as I had never been there before, and I ate one heck of an omelet that could have passed as my only meal for the day.

I am glad I convinced my parents that Dave and I could both fit in the car for this trip. This is sort of a turning point in our lives, as we are all starting graduate school this fall, and it was great to all be together again. I also have to admit I have been wanting to do this trip since my American Architecture professor in college suggested it to my fellow students and I in his parting words on the last day of class for that elective. Now, I have one more city to explore (Portland) before the flight back home.