In my first two days of solo roadtripping, I met lots of interesting people and awesome animals, but it was quite nice to arrive in Ventura and be reunited with a human being that I actually knew– my Seaglass Cinema partner Kevin! I still don’t have a good grasp of what Ventura is all about, but…
Prior to my visit, the best I could gather about Ojai was that it was a small town with a lot of farm land, and that people also like to go there for high end spas and relaxation. Both of those things seem to hold true. Ojai also happens to be where the Gardner family…
Solvang. It’s a little Danish town in California somewhere between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. This was my fourth stop on day two of my solo road trip. There are plenty of bakeries and windmills to go around, and the town also got a little feature in the movie Sideways. I also happened to…
On day two of my California Coasting road trip, I awoke to the coast blanketed in fog. My first stop was Montaña De Oro Park which is often noted for its sand dunes and tide pools, but unable to find any trail maps and not having much time, I really just stopped by, said hello…
Elephant seals, black angus cattle, and beautiful horses. I had no idea my road trip would quickly turn into a menagerie of interesting animals. After checking in to my room in Cambria, I drove, windows down, back up highway 1 to pay another visit to the Pacific Ocean. As trite and car-commercial-like as it may be,…
Part of the joy of not doing too much research before a trip is the pleasant surprise of experiencing a town like Cambria for yourself. It was charming to say the least. I rushed over from Hearst Castle because I wanted to make it to the Tea Cozy before it closed at four. When I arrived all…
How do I convey the magic of getting in a car and simply driving down the California coast– on a Tuesday morning, all by myself, no less? Nothing in particular prompted this trip, other than my love for travel and a well-timed week with no other obligations. But of course, I am no stranger to…
We are now on part two, day two of my Memorial Day weekend adventures. We started the day at China Camp, a state park up by San Rafael. Unfortunately, it is about to be shut down next month due to California state budget issues, so our visit was aptly timed. China Camp was a historic…
Friday night of Memorial Day weekend, I texted my good friend Dan because we still had no plans whatsoever, and we needed to do something! Dan is the perfect adventure buddy because he is not fazed by the randomness of our trips (example: Salton Sea). After all, spontaneous trips often turn out to be the…
To say this Memorial Day weekend has been incredible is certainly the understatement of my year. In the last two days, I watched a waterfall pour into the ocean, I was attacked by a turkey on a hiking trail, and I saw fireworks spew from the Golden Gate Bridge. I have so many stories to…
Defining Movement, a.k.a. defMo, is an amazing multicultural dance group at Duke University. In college, I used to love photographing their performances. In fact, a defMo show was my first official paid photography gig. I always wished I could dance that well, but I was pretty content with leaving the dancing to defMo and photographing…
It’s very fitting that right now, as I type this post, I am back at Duke a second time in two months, sitting at a computer station in Lilly Library on Duke University’s East Campus. Just last month, I came to Duke for my reunion. It had been five years– five long/short years since I graduated from this…