it’s all fake smiles and leather jackets
LISTENING TO: The Glorious Sons - S.O.S. (Sawed Off Shotgun)
I always remember people being really surprised that I had never been to California, which is why I’m so absolutely thrilled to be here now. My aunts and my cousin have been out here for a decade now, and I’ve never quite been able to make the trip, which is why it’s so exciting to be out here now, for my cousin’s high school graduation.
But I guess I should start from the top, which leads us back over on the east coast and the Philadelphia airport at 6am this morning. Although I don’t normally sleep on planes, I was not about to take advantage of the extremely early timeframe I put myself in (especially since after my trip to New Mexico earlier this year started the trend of ungodly early flights across the country); Add in one of the most unappetizing cup of airplane coffee I’ve ever had (and trust me, my love of caffeine had had me consume some really awful drinks cosplaying as coffee over the years), and by the time I hit LAX for my layover, I was just really happy to finally touchdown in California.
One extremely short layover later (thankfully not as nail-biting as my last one at DFW), I landed in Fresno, which reminded me a lot of the Albuquerque airport - small, friendly, and extremely into branding itself as a cool place to land in. After meeting my aunts and my cousin at the arrival gate, ordering an actual cup of coffee at Starbucks while waiting for my sister’s plane to land, it finally hit me that I had made it - finally - to California.
First stop on the list? In-N-Out burger, of course. It was one of my regrets that I didn’t get to one when I was in Vegas, and call me a Shake Shack traitor all you want, but in my experience, this was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. From there, we drove into Visalia, where my family has lived the whole time they’ve been West Coast living. It was definitely a joy to see palm trees surrounding the highway, but it was a little bit surreal to equate what my brain thinks California should look like as compared to Visalia. Granted, I know that California as a whole is not what you see in the movies, but having my aunts describe where they live as a desert and actual realizing that yes, it truly is mainly a desert was definitely interesting.
Not that it’s a desert in the same way I would consider the surrounding areas of Vegas, is a desert, however. There’s a lot of vegetation, but it’s the kind of vegetation you would expect Wylie E. Coyote to run out of while chasing the Roadrunner kind of vegetation. Tumbleweeds are legit, and much larger than you would ever think they were.
After hanging out in the pool (of course) for the remainder of the afternoon, it was time for dinner. Downtown Visalia reminds me a lot of downtowns back home, actually, with a lot of foot traffic and liveliness. We ended the night with dinner at Fugazzi’s, where we had a great meal to cap off a fantastic first day on the west coast.
I always remember people being really surprised that I had never been to California, which is why I’m so absolutely thrilled to be here now. My aunts and my cousin have been out here for a decade now, and I’ve never quite been able to make the trip, which is why it’s so exciting to be out here now, for my cousin’s high school graduation.
But I guess I should start from the top, which leads us back over on the east coast and the Philadelphia airport at 6am this morning. Although I don’t normally sleep on planes, I was not about to take advantage of the extremely early timeframe I put myself in (especially since after my trip to New Mexico earlier this year started the trend of ungodly early flights across the country); Add in one of the most unappetizing cup of airplane coffee I’ve ever had (and trust me, my love of caffeine had had me consume some really awful drinks cosplaying as coffee over the years), and by the time I hit LAX for my layover, I was just really happy to finally touchdown in California.
One extremely short layover later (thankfully not as nail-biting as my last one at DFW), I landed in Fresno, which reminded me a lot of the Albuquerque airport - small, friendly, and extremely into branding itself as a cool place to land in. After meeting my aunts and my cousin at the arrival gate, ordering an actual cup of coffee at Starbucks while waiting for my sister’s plane to land, it finally hit me that I had made it - finally - to California.
First stop on the list? In-N-Out burger, of course. It was one of my regrets that I didn’t get to one when I was in Vegas, and call me a Shake Shack traitor all you want, but in my experience, this was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. From there, we drove into Visalia, where my family has lived the whole time they’ve been West Coast living. It was definitely a joy to see palm trees surrounding the highway, but it was a little bit surreal to equate what my brain thinks California should look like as compared to Visalia. Granted, I know that California as a whole is not what you see in the movies, but having my aunts describe where they live as a desert and actual realizing that yes, it truly is mainly a desert was definitely interesting.
Not that it’s a desert in the same way I would consider the surrounding areas of Vegas, is a desert, however. There’s a lot of vegetation, but it’s the kind of vegetation you would expect Wylie E. Coyote to run out of while chasing the Roadrunner kind of vegetation. Tumbleweeds are legit, and much larger than you would ever think they were.
After hanging out in the pool (of course) for the remainder of the afternoon, it was time for dinner. Downtown Visalia reminds me a lot of downtowns back home, actually, with a lot of foot traffic and liveliness. We ended the night with dinner at Fugazzi’s, where we had a great meal to cap off a fantastic first day on the west coast.
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