10 for Summer '07: #6 Washington D.C.

Photo by Flickr user Foto Blitz Color


I think one of the very few times I've cried in public was the first time I saw the Lincoln Memorial - it was 1995, and I was in Washington D.C. for a long vacation. For my last quarter of college and the summer after, I lived in D.C. for two back-to-back newspaper internships. It was, by far, my favorite part of college. You can't really beat going to White House press conferences when you're 21.

I've been back once since then, for my friend Laura's wedding. It still amazes me how impressive and formal the city is - despite all the increasing moronic business that goes on there, it looks like the place where the richest country in the history of the world should be run from. (In the NW section, at least - the tourist/flashy part, as opposed to the place where D.C. residents actually live.) It gives you faith that things, ultimately, will be on the right path - and more and more, I'd like to have that kind of faith again.

10 for Summer '07: San Francisco

Photo by Flickr user borenan.

Los Angeles has a weird relationship with San Francisco - I believe it's summed up best by a dismissive comment an Angeleno friend got from someone when he was last up there: "Oh, you're from L.A.? People in San Francisco read." Niiiice. If you read so much, why are you so willing to broadcast your ignorance?

San Francisco is compact and cute and scenic - none of which L.A. happens to be. It's also expensive, and crowded, and the traffic is just as bad down here - which, I think, makes it a worse place to live...but a lovely place to visit. One of the first non-family visiting, non-work related vacations I took with my parents was to San Francisco. I had just bought a Polaroid camera and was way, way too excited to use it. I still have the photo album...and my favorite photo is still the one I took of the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge taken from a bay tour boat we were on. Yes, Golden Gate photos are a dime a dozen, but how many people have one of the underside.

Immediately after college, a wave of my friends moved to the Bay Area, so I was up there at least several times a year. In the intervening years, however, the vast majority have moved away - because of the cost, the impossible housing situation, and the traffic. I haven't been in probably three years, and I'd like to go back. Maybe, you know, buy some (more) books.

10 for Summer '07: #8 Park City, Utah

Photo by Flickr user ekillian.

So the photo above is the Park City I visited - no, not black and white, silly - snowy, brittle, cold. I was there covering the Sundance Film Festival for work in 2006, during which time the average temperature was 18 degrees. Yeah, shows how much my blood has thinned since Chicago, when 18 degree weather would have been cause for a lighter jacket.

In any case, the town is incredibly beautiful, and continues my possibly odd desire to see ski towns in summer. Mammoth? I've been there countless times to snowboard, but never when it wasn't under 15 feet of snow. I feel the same way about Park City, with it's charming downtown. I'd also like to see it away from the madness of Sundance, with its full shuttle buses and triple-parked limos on tiny, winding streets.

10 for Summer '07: #9 San Diego

Photo by Flickr user Joe_B


No, it's not cheating that I'm putting my hometown on this list! It's not! Really! In all honesty, I don't make the 2.5 hour drive (on a good day) from Los Angeles to San Diego often enough, and when I do it's generally for family-and-friends reasons, not appreciate-the-city reasons. (Not that my family and friends don't appreciate the city. Geez, maybe I shouldn't be writing about this.)

Here is what intrigues me most about San Diego, though - when I moved back to Southern California from Chicago, I chose Los Angeles because San Diego hadn't grown up yet. There weren't things you could do there that you couldn't do in L.A. In the past ten years, though, San Diego has come into its own - it has a thriving downtown scene that I'm horribly, horribly jealous of, and the impact of the biotech industry means that it's become more than a surfing/military/tourist town.

And the zoo, of course, still kicks all kinds of butt.

10 for Summer '07: #10 New Orleans

See, I promised you last week - a list! Presented in a suspenseful 10 - to - 1 countdown! So without further ado, here it is: The 10 places I'd like to return to in Summer '07.



Photo of Preservation Hall from flickr user plaid ninja.

I first went to New Orleans with my parents in junior high - at least, I think it was junior high, it may have been younger, because I remember being reallly excited to get a Hard Rock Cafe New Orleans shirt. My dad had some conference there, so my mom and I spent the days touring the French Quarter and taking ferry rides on the Mississippi.

Jump forward 20 years, and I was actually in Mexico when Hurricane Katrina struck. I stopped by my parent's house on the way down, and I remember my dad saying something like "That hurricane is going to be very, very bad." After three days in Mexico with no contact with the outside world, we came back and saw that it was very, very bad.

To this day, I have no idea how the entire country didn't revolt at that point. I mean, really. What's it going to take? We're apathetic even to one of the 10 largest cities in our country getting wiped off the face of the map? Yes, I donated money. Yes, I followed in the paper the stories of the refugees that wound up in Los Angeles. But by and large - since the famous areas of the city were saved - the rest of the country seems to have moved on. Outrageous. A city isn't just it's best parts, it's the sum of the whole.

So anyway, I want to go back to New Orleans. It deserves the attention.