I always said that I wanted to live in California, but it was kind of one of those things you just say. The, let’s say condition, of the world made international travel impossible for me this year, so I’ve been spending time traipsing around my own country instead of trying out my French or Italian in foreign locales.

This time has been important for me, to get more in touch with my Americanness, to discover more about the people who I share the continent with, and to find beauty in my own backyard.

So after spending the summer in Alaska, I got on a plane to California expecting a chill, relaxing few weeks in the Golden State. Chill and relaxing they were NOT. From wine country to the Hollywood Hills, I feel like I saw ALL of Cali. So without any more preface, here’s a list of everywhere I went on the West Coast this fall.

Amador County

Bobbi, my friend from Alaska, picked me up at the Sacramento airport, and we stopped for a late dinner at my first ever In-N-Out Burger. After four months of sky-high Alaskan prices, I almost blacked out when I saw that a double burger cost $4.75. What was this thrifty and delicious wonderland?

(I learned in the following month that that particular thrifty and delicious wonderland ended just outside the doors of In-N-Out. California is EXPENSIVE.)

Bobbi’s family’s vineyard, Matthew Gibson Winery, is nestled in the golden hills of Amador County, which is part of California’s famous “wine country.” In just a couple weeks, I learned how to make wine, from pressing grape skins to bottling and barreling, labeling the bottles, and storing them in air conditioned storage units where they’d stay for at least two years. I also learned some drinking tips and tricks from the winemaker, Matt, and I’ll never pour more than four centimeters into a wine glass again.

Sacramento

I don’t have a lot to say about Sacramento since I was only there for a couple hours to pick up Braedon, our other friend from Alaska who came to visit. (Our community up there most closely resembles a cult, or a dysfunctionally close family.) Sacramento has a huge homeless population, which I wasn’t used to, coming from small-town Alaska. Tents on the side of the road were culture shock for me.

We spent most of our time in a sweet little “old street” district, board walk sidewalks lined with all kinds of shops, bars, and restaurants. The whole vibe was very wild west. Being who I am, I had to check out the Chinatown, and was beyond disappointed. It was the smallest, emptiest, ghostiest Chinatown I’ve ever seen. Nothing was open except, weirdly, a Thai restaurant, and there was almost nobody in the little square or walking down the tight little streets. At the end of the day, I can say I went to the state capital, and I don’t feel the need to go again.

Big Trees

Not to be confused with the larger state parks famous for redwoods, Big Trees is a state forest in northern central California, right near where the eastern border bends. Unsurprisingly, they were some really big trees. Alongside the sequoias grew towering incense cedars and ponderosa pines, two other gigantic species of tree here.

You feel really tiny standing among the big trees, but at the same time, they’re not as big as they look in photos.

Lake Tahoe

Emerald Lake is a Kenai-blue bay with a little island in the middle. The first time you see it is from an altitude, looking down on it. For natural beauty, Alaska really knocked my socks off and set the bar pretty high, and the first stunning vistas I saw in California that could even begin to compare to Alaska were in Tahoe. The trails were hard to hike because there’s so little air up there.

We stopped at the California-Nevada border, which marked off my twenty-second state that I’ve “been to.” There’s a marked lack of restaurants in the area, so we grabbed takeout at Chipotle and Panda Express for lunch, and stopped at Nevada Lake, which has pine trees growing right out of the sand.

Yosemite National Park

Whether they know it or not, most Mac users are familiar with Half Dome, the sliced-pannatone-looking peak in Yosemite. It was possibly the most unreal-feeling place in California that we got to see. I left with a sense of, did I really see that?

The hike up Vernal Falls concluded with a rigorous staircase. At this time of year, it was more like Vernal Trickle because of the drought. In a stroke of luck, we got to see the golden hour hit Half Dome. After we got back to the car, we rode in positively hangry silence, quietly starving our way back to Amador County. A Subway was our saving grace.

San Francisco

Unashamedly my favorite place in California. A bustling artsy city with the biggest Chinatown I’ve ever seen. Read more about the San Francisco Chinatown in my other blog post. If I got to pick my next life, I would want to live in San Francisco in the 90’s.

Orange County

The NorCal part of the trip concluded, we drove six hours south. Did you know between NorCal and SoCal, there’s an enormous mountain range that you cross by driving over? It’s called the Grapevine and apparently everyone knows about it. I’ve never heard about it before.

Arriving in Orange County, I felt like I was in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Fancy Southwest houses, quiet suburb cul-de-sacs, and pristine beaches. This was around the time I started to have a mental breakdown over the fact that Californians in real life actually DO talk about highways and roads as a topic of conversation. “Did you take the 5, then the 405? Which exit did you take?” It’s as bad as the Chinese and Fung Shui—an endless conversation subject with no correct answer. What made it worse is that after a while…I was starting to understand the chatter.

I did find a Taiwanese restaurant tucked into a strip mall, and that made my day.

Hollywood

The Hollywood Sign, the Walk of Fame, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, you grow up hearing about it and seeing it in movies, but few people actually go see it. By the time I got there, it all seemed tired and sad. Scorching hot, I found the contrast fascinating: the stars on the Walk of Fame that belonged to the rich and famous, and the homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk a few feet away. Ironic in the worst possible way.

Irvine

A year and a half ago, I stood in the rain in Taipei waving goodbye to a couple of Taiwanese friends who were immigrating to America. Well, unlike most “we’ll meet up!” promises, I managed to coordinate a link-up in Irvine while I was there. It felt unreal to hang out with them after all this time, and in a totally different country. We had dinner at a real Taiwanese restaurant and we went to a Chinese church, which was a huge flashback.

I booked a few nights in a hotel with a pool, expecting a little me-vacation in between trip chapters, but that turned out to be a nightmare. Moral: Never book a room at a hotel with only 2.5 stars on Tripadvisor.

Hollywood

We hiked to the Hollywood Sign and saw a gorgeous view of L.A. But there’s nothing glamorous about the Hollywood sign or the hike to get there. Pro tip: you can’t actually stand in front of the sign, you can only stand behind it and look down. (Some of the coolest plants in L.A. grow here.)

San Clemente

Beautiful beach, perfect houses. The one place in L.A. I could see myself living. Cute seaside town, with a train and a trolley that ran between the coffee shops and the beach. It seemed like the perfect town to rent an attic apartment and get involved in the lives of the locals, find out who’s keeping secrets from who and who’s having an affair with who, write about their interpersonal drama, publish a book, and disappear, never to be seen again. (It just seemed like THAT kind of town.)

Pacific Beach

I planned a week in PB, thinking I’d spend my time reading and spending time on the beach. The first disappointment was that apparently, it gets COLD in San Diego, and there was a constant wind. My particular brand of sensory issues means that if there is a constant cold breeze, I cannot enjoy myself, which made sunning on the sand more of a discipline than a relaxing pastime. The prices were high, and I didn’t click with any of the people at the hostel, which was loud and cold. I slept terribly. The patio, where I envisioned myself chilling in a hammock reading, was constantly populated and smelled like either cigarettes or weed when it wasn’t being used to host parties.

This helped me realize what it truly means to be 30. My days of loud party hostels are over, I guess.

Oh, and I would be remiss to mention that I caught the flu and spent twenty hours in bed with a fever.

San Diego (Little Italy)

Boy was I glad to leave PB. I took the bus and a train to downtown San Diego, where I spent a week at the PB hostel’s sister location, which turned out to be a far better place. I slept good and made friends. Though San Francisco is my favorite city in California, San Diego holds up well against the competition. Balboa park is pretty, and easy to get to. Food is still real expensive, so eating out was limited to once every day or two. Saw the boat harbor, met some people at the hostel, and had a fun time. Little Italy reminded me of my heritage, and I wish I could live there, but the prices were too high, making it unlivable for seasonal gypsies like me.

I spent a lot of time sitting outside coffee shops planning my next seasonal move.

Big Sur

My last stop in California was camping in Big Sur with Justin & Alaina. As we drove along the cliffs, I captured a sort of Vibe that I’ve been unwittingly seeking for years. Something very Pacific Northwestern, something I’ve only caught a glimpse of in Alaska. Spruce trees, the sun at an angle, water crashing on brown rocky cliffs, deep shadows and fresh air. It’s hard to explain, but it feels like a memory from a past life. Or it could be a very specific movie that I saw as a child and remembered the feeling but not the context.

By the time I got on the plane back to Maine, I was exhausted. Emotionally worn out from a great summer in Alaska, physically worn out from traveling up and down California for a month. But it was worth it!

Conclusions

My curiosity sated, I’m not sure I’ll ever elect to live in California again. It’s a beautiful state, but it seemed worn-down by the pandemic. And though I feel like the Gibsons on the winery are like family, I didn’t seem to make the same connection with Californians at large. The connection that tethers me to Alaska and Taiwan, I don’t feel with California. But regardless, it’s an absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful state, and I feel really lucky I got to spend a month there.

Have you ever been to California? What were your takeaways?