Ain't No Party Like a West Coast Party

As of July 2011, I’ll be taking my talents to SoCal and betraying my East Coast loyalties for a little while. But first, let’s rewind.

In three weeks, I’m moving on from my amazing job in DC to venture out into the unknown (kind of). After a wonderful three years with some great people, I’ll be A. traveling, and B. moving to San Diego.

There are plenty of reasons why so if you really want to know them in detail feel free to ask but I’ll just list some here to give you an understanding of the background: timing, adventure, change, sun, risk, beaches, foolishness, youth, sports, and did I mention sun?

Seriously though, it’s a move that I’m making with both excitement and a heavy heart. While I expect to be back in DC later, I can’t help but be sad to leave so many of my close friends here.

Also, before I take off to San Diego and attempt to find stable employment, I’ll be doing a bit of traveling. Why traveling? Well, this is more of a ‘why not’ situation. There are tons of places I want to visit and what better time than now. This means that for a couple months, my updates will turn into a bit of a traveling journal. Don’t worry though, they’ll remain sports-related posts because while I’ll be traveling to Spain, Portugal, Argentina, and Chile, I’ll be training for a marathon.

In short, this summer will be one hell of an adventure.

While I don’t intend to plan everything down to the day/hour, here is a rough sketch of my summer plans. 11 days traveling solo and running (literally) around Spain/Portugal – likely city stops include Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, Lisbon, and possibly a few small towns. 10 days in Chile and Argentina visiting my sister and enjoying as much ceviche and beef as possible. Then I’m back stateside for a slow drive west. Stops along the way will include quite a few national parks but also all or some of the following cities: Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Fargo, Billings, Missoula, Seattle, Portland (July 4th marathon), San Francisco, LA.

So stay tuned for updates and let me know if you have any good running/biking/swimming routes or locations in any of these cities. I’m open to it all! Oh, and for those who have friends or colleagues in San Diego, there’s that little detail of finding a job that I could use help with.