Los Angeles is hot. Like, really hot. Like, so hot and so overwhelmingly sweltering that the word ‘like’ has to be incorporated to express how truly warm it is here. While my mom and I lament our limited options for outfits in order to fight the heat, locals are strutting down boulevards in long sleeves and far too many layers, albeit fashionably. It is LA, after all. As part of our effort to escape the sun’s rays, on Wednesday we visited the very air-conditioned and very crowded Griffith Observatory. If […]

Read More →

Thursday we left Little River, California and we drove more than 300 miles along the beautiful Pacific Coastline from Little River to Santa Rosa to Santa Clara to San Jose to Santa Cruz to Big Sur. On the way, we discovered the wonders of what I like to call ‘exaggeratedly slow driving’. The Pacific Coast highway has gorgeous views, sparse guardrails, and an alarming lack of speed limits for a road that puts you mere feet from the Pacific Ocean. Here’s the catch, there’s a cliff between you and the […]

Read More →

Remember those Portlandian hipsters my mom mentioned in her most recent post? They are truly devoted to their craft, blurring the line between “oh, cool” and “isn’t that, like, a waste of money?” Example A: forgoing normal music practices at breakfast restaurants (an employee’s Spotify hooked up to speakers) and instead employing a real DJ complete with vinyl records and mixers. Cool? I guess, but the DJ station was for the sake of attaining a vibe, and as kind and talented as the DJ was, it seemed very Portland and […]

Read More →

We spent the 4th of July engulfed in Americana. Remember the Twilight Zone episode entitled “Willoughby”: the one with the disillusioned man and the tragic train ride? The anachronism of the town he finds, named Willoughby, was mirrored by our first stop yesterday: the town of Issaquah, Washington’s 4th of July parade. The street was full of happy townspeople garbed in old-timey red white and blue attire, kids rode around on bicycles or in the back of wagons pulled by parents or an older sibling, and people’s dogs were even […]

Read More →

There’s not a lot happening in North Dakota. After touching down in Bismarck yesterday afternoon, we drove past wide swaths of rolling hills seemingly devoid of any civilization. Iowa’s corn was gone, replaced by miles of dairy farms and sparingly fenced in fields alongside a near empty interstate. Flash forward 2 hours and the cars were closer together and a small crowd was assembled before the famous Salem Sue, the pride, joy, and primary attraction of New Salem, North Dakota. We absolutely loved it. Sue is an ode to the […]

Read More →

When I was younger, my dad had a bright green and yellow tractor that was twice my height and could zoom around the backyard with me as it’s eager passenger. Of course, I was three, so things seemed much bigger and much faster then. Today, we visited Waterloo, Iowa and went on the John Deere Factory Tour in order to see how tractors are manufactured. As large as the tractor of my childhood seemed, the ones being made in this facility are simply massive. When we entered the John Deere […]

Read More →

Last summer, a World War I film was released to worldwide positive critical reception and massive box office success. The movie’s opening action sequence depicts a pilot crashing into the sea and frantically trying to escape his sinking plane in his soaked woolen military issue uniform. The pilot’s name? Steve Trevor. The film’s name? Wonder Woman. Sure, Wonder Woman wasn’t exactly labeled a war film, but it was, and it strives to answer the essential question of all World War I stories: why did it have to happen? Today, my […]

Read More →

I can’t remember the last time I ate a jelly bean, but I know I won’t be eating one ever again. This morning we made a quick day trip to Wisconsin and instead of sampling cheese or admiring the natural beauty of the Midwest, we opted for what seemed like a wholesome, unique, fascinating experience: The Jelly Belly Factory Tour. Start with a rough sketch of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, the stuff of childhood and candy legend. Now, make it smaller, empty, vaguely gothic, and condensed into a showcase warehouse […]

Read More →

So yesterday was it, the big one eight. 18. To celebrate, I decided to sleep in. Yesterday we visited 3 museums: The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, and the Motown Museum. Respectively, these visits were harrowing, enlightening, and uplifting. The Museum of African American History’s main exhibit, titled Rise Up, ranged from African origins to the horror of slavery, to segregation, to modern challenges and accomplishments. There was a great deal of overlap between segments of this exhibit and the exhibits of […]

Read More →

Yesterday’s venture was a trip to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which serves as both a historical resource and a testament to the efforts to combat slavery through the modern day. Located in Cincinnati, Ohio, the freedom center is a sobering reminder of how recent American slavery was and the extent to which it continues to permeate our society. When my mom and I were standing in line to purchase museum tickets, one exhibit caught my eye: Confederate Memory: Symbolism, Controversy & Legacy. It discussed the pressing issue of […]

Read More →