Friday, November 13, 2009

In Reverse Order: Leaving California, Yosemite Adventure, and Leaping out of a Flying Airplane

After 1.5 years, it's time to move on for greener pastures! Actually, the pastures will be quite a bit *less* green. I've been offered a job transfer to the Phoenix, Arizona area. As one of my mentors explained to me when I spoke with him regarding making the decision to leave: "When you see the leaves coming down from the trees, get ready for the fall." In other words, make like a tree and get out of here!

I love working for my company, they're helping with the move, and the new location has many more opportunities for a burgeoning mechanical engineer - so, here I go! Unlike when I left Ohio, however, I'm taking somebody with me this time. Anthony's coming too.

Two weeks ago, we picked out our new apartment and aside from planning yet another Awesome Roadtrip to commemorate the move, we're good to go.

You have to admit, this doesn't look like a bad place to live (at least in November):



One of the things I've wanted to do for a while was visit Yosemite and had never gotten around to it. Last weekend, my good friend Kathleen journeyed with me to Yosemite National Park. She's an experienced Yosemiter, and was able to show me around most of the big sights in the span of a day, as I needed. We did the whirlwind tour - Kathleen has been many times so she knew how to fit in the most in a day. Bridalviel falls, Happy Isles, Vernal Falls, Curry Village, Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Village, Lower Yosemite Falls and driving to the big vista points where we could see Half Dome and the rest of Yosemite Falls. It was probably only about 4 miles of hiking but was still so exhausting!



Also, on Halloween I did this in Monterey: