Ok…I’ll come clean. I’m spoiled! For the last 4 years my amazing wife has provided a life envious to any chaser of summer. We have lived at the beach. We have lived in the plains. We have lived in the hills. With the exception of one brutal winter in NY, we have chased the sun. Need proof of how lucky I am, take a look at our pics on this site. At the very least the skies are clear. At the very best I’m saving on laundry, shirtless on a beach. Although, I will miss the time of eternal summer, it’s Chrysa’s time in the sun (so to speak). Here in Utah she has her beloved mountains and she will have her much missed seasons. The Starks are right when they say “winter is coming.” However, I am a child of summer. With that in mind allow me one last indulgence prior to beginning the Utah posts in earnest. Allow me to sum up our second time in sunny California. After that? The move to Utah including the good, the bad, and cat.
As mentioned above, Chrysa and I have lived in California twice. To the surprise of many we do very well there financially speaking. The fact that Chrysa was a traveler has a lot to do with it. There are perks after all. But, much of our success living in such a high cost area comes from our general life strategy of Keep It Simple. Living in Huntington Beach really helped in that regard. So much happened at the beach and we were walking distance. So if there was a surfing competition, boom, we walked down and checked it out. How about a VW van show? Boom…walk on down. Street fair that weekend? Boom! You get it. We even worked out on the beach.
All of this free entertainment allowed us to do some of the other neat stuff in the area. Why not hit up the aquarium in Long Beach and get scared by the stingrays (one tried to take flight out of the tank to come after me…it could happen…they have wings)? Did we want to tour the Queen Mary and have fancy cocktails? Yes we did! How about buying pretty jewelry? Did that too.
Down times were easy for us to fill as well. If we found ourselves in an indecisive mood we would head to Laguna or Corona del Mar for a cliff side walk, a little window shopping, and a glass of wine overlooking the Pacific. Terrible right?
The first time we lived in California I got to rekindle my friendship with Adam. To me California is much like that friendship. I didn’t realize it was missing until it was gone. California, much like Adam, is something I will keep in my life from now on. The place, like the person, is something I will go back to any chance I get. I won’t say farewell my friend, I’ll say “till next time.”
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NY was brutal….but ya made a lifetime friend!!! 😁❤️