Last walk to work in Chicago.

Relocating from Chicago to Philadelphia was bittersweet.  It's been a few weeks now and it was definitely the right decision, but Chicago had become home for the last couple of years.  It was very enjoyable for me to stroll the little over a mile from our apartment in Bucktown to my shared office space in Logan Square.  I made the walk nearly everyday and I got very used to what I saw as I walked northwest up Milwaukee Avenue.  So during my last week making that walk I tried to really take in, and of course document all the cool little vignettes that I passed.  Here is my walk to work; pictorially.

Wild Horses of Cotopaxi

Cotopaxi was one of our favorite places we visited in Ecuador.  One thing that made it so amazing were the herds of wild horses roaming the landscape.  They were slightly wary of people, but if you were easy going and didn't run at them you could get pretty close.  It was an incredible experience.

Road Home to Chicago

Once Sarah and I left Los Angeles, the goal was to get back to Chicago as quickly as possible.  Despite not wanting to get back to the worst winter in Chicago in decades, we had a job to get to in New York.  We decided to fly rather than risk getting stuck in the snow with Timmy so we had to drop him off in Chicago first and make our flights.  The last several days were longer with an average of 8-10 hours of driving a day, but we did manage to stop at a couple of cool places like The Salton Sea and Petrified National Forest for picnics and photos.

Pacific Coast Highway

On our recent road trip, hands down our favorite part of this trip was the four days we spent driving down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco down to Los Angeles.  The route took us through Monterey, which is now one of our favorite places on earth since it is where Sarah and I got engaged, and through Big Sur, another of our favorite places because it is simply amazing.  It's so incredible to have majestic redwood forests adjacent to beautiful beaches.  And, 70 degrees in January was a bit better than the slew of plolar vortices that were attacking Chicago.

San Francisco Beach Day

Sarah and I managed to see two of the most beautiful sunny days I think San Francisco has ever seen.  I have been to San Francisco many times but I've never spent a day at the beach there.  Happy to have changed that now.  If only it was like this there everyday.

Death Valley

Sarah and I had far too little time to spend in Death Valley National Park on our recent cross country trek.  Sarah and I plan to make another trip there dedicating an entire week to it.  We stayed at Furnace Creek Resort where we enjoyed having a drink at the bar and chatting with fellow travelers.  It was here that we learned that the winter weather and road conditions were going to prevent us from making it to Yosemite.  We only had time for one early morning at Zabriskie Point and a leisurly drive through the valley.  On the drive we stopped on the highway for 10 minutes watching two coyotes that were strolling alongside of the road.  At one point I had Sarah let me out of the car so I could run several hundred feet up hill to photograph the valley below and Timmy the Trailer driving through it.  Sarah subsequently got yelled at by the park rangers for stopping on the highway, so she had to keep driving down the road leaving me in the dust.  I was out of breath running to catch up with her.  Worth it.

Sand Hollow

Sand Hollow State Park in Southern Utah was a wonderful accidental find. On the drive toward California from Monument Valley, we needed a nice place to rest for the night and found it in a google search.  It ended up being one of our favorite spots of the trip.  It didn't hurt that it was beautiful and warm with a crisp blue sky.