About the trip

By Diana Guay

I have been wanting to see California for as long as I could remember. More specifically, I’ve wanted to LIVE in San Francisco. I don’t even know what I’m actually expecting once I arrive there, but I’ve always envisioned it as some sort of artistic/Asian mecca, where all my worlds collide. Somehow, I imagine San Francisco is a whirlwind of culture, youth, fusion food, and art. In reality, I worry that it will be dirty, jaded, and ultimately disappointing.

Part of the reason behind doing  a road trip is to hopefully avoid disappointment in the end destination. We’re taking the whole end-point out of the equation, thus making the entire trip is the adventure. Also, there is so much of this country that I haven’t seen; I mean the furthest west I’ve been is Chicago. And since I don’t consider work trips, or 3-day weekends for weddings to be vacation, the last one I have been on was my high school trip to Disney when I was a senior.

With that in mind, we are embarking on a 5-week vacation, traveling across the country, hoping to hit some expected landmarks, like the Hoover Dam, Death Valley, the Pacific Coast Highway, and I’m sure we’ll get side-tracked along the way and run into obstacles. Yet I plan to document all of it, through writing, photos, and video. I don’t want to miss a minute of it. And I want pictures of everything.