Going, Going, Gone in the Golden State

A (delayed) recap of our last 9 weeks in California

Hello again! It's been a while since we last updated you all on what we've been up to the past few months. We have a lot to catch up on... let's get started :)

In our last post we shared about our first 6 weeks in California. Our last 9 weeks were spent checking off some of our California bucket-list. It began in October when we went to the happiest place on Earth... Disneyland! We spent our first wedding anniversary screaming our heads off on rollercoasters... romantic, we know. My sister even made us custom matching Disneyland shirts to celebrate. We had the best time trying to fit in as many rides (and dole whips) as we could into the day. We got there when the gates opened and left close to midnight. The next night we went to dinner at a locally owned Italian restaurant in Downtown Carpinteria. It was a fun and memorable weekend celebrating our first year of marriage :)

LA was on our list of cities to visit since it's only an hour and a half away from us in Carpinteria (on a good traffic day). We drove to Santa Monica first and visited the pier. Next, we drove to the Hollywood sign and down Rodeo Drive. While we aren't sure we will ever willingly go back to LA (too busy and chaotic for us), it was cool seeing so many culturally relevant spots (my reality TV junkie heart was happy).

Something we've really missed since moving to California is hiking. The next day, Tyler looked up a gorgeous hike for us to do in the mountain range hugging the hills of Santa Barbara and Montecito. Lucy of course made it to the top before both of us. The views were incredible and once again left us in awe of Gods creation.

Tanner came to visit us in November. It was so good to see a familiar face and show him around Carpinteria and Santa Barbara. One obvious downside to being so far away from Kansas is not being able make it home for special events and holidays. While we were sad to miss Thanksgiving with our families, Tyler had the holiday off and made us a 10/10 Thanksgiving dinner to enjoy together once I was home from work :)

Our next big weekend trip was to San Francisco. We were total tourists and hit all of the popular spots that 8 hours would allow. We visited the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf and The Painted Ladies (iconic Full House row of homes). We had hoped to make it to Alcatraz but we had Lucy with us - maybe next time. While our time in San Fran was short, we could not have enjoyed it more! The charm and uniqueness is so special and unlike any other city we have been to.

After the sunset we headed to our hotel room in Sunnyvale (Silicon Valley) for the night. The next morning we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway back to Carpinteria. We were looking forward to this part of our trip and it met all of our expectations! This is a must-do drive when spending time in California. I got the inside scoop about what towns and sights we should see from one of my favorite patients at work. So along the way, we stopped at Capitola Beach, Monterey (where Big Little Lies was filmed!), Carmel by the Sea (famous golf course along the ocean - you have to pay to access this part of the drive), Bixby Creek Bridge, Great Sur Vista Point, Pfeiffer Beach (amazing hidden beach that is known for having purple-tinted sand due to the minerals found there), Partington Cove and McWay Falls.

Our last big adventure before my contract ended was back to LA (only for the Chiefs - we won't talk about how long we sat in traffic) to go to our first NFL game together! We had so much fun cheering on our team in a packed SoFi stadium. The Chiefs win definitely made our drive back to Carp much more bearable (who am I kidding we all know I was sleeping on the way home - thank you Tyler).

We spent our final days in Carp soaking up every moment at our favorite place here - the beach. We were blessed with maybe the most beautiful sunsets and skies we had seen the our entire time here - it must've been Gods good-bye gift to us. My placement ended on December 9th. The contract ended up being 15 weeks instead of the traditional 13 weeks because I was able to extend it (my facility was still in need of an SLP and did not have another traveler lined up). We packed up our Airbnb and headed back to Kansas on the 10th.

We were so grateful to have had the extra two weeks in Carp knowing that we would soon be returning to a "real" winter back home. Carpinteria has made such an imprint on our hearts and we still can't believe how lucky we were to end up here. I can remember being back in Colorado setting up this contract for us - the only available and "affordable" housing we could find was in this town called "Carpinteria." We had no idea what it would be like - was it nice? safe? was there a Target? You know, the essentials. In my wildest dreams I could not have dreamt up how amazing it would be. While there is no Target, there are fellow dog lovers who enjoy watching their pups get the zoomies on the beach as much as we do. There are small shops and local restaurants who love their community and draw outsiders in to experience the quaint beach town charm. And then, there are the green mountains to the east and the vast ocean to the west and palm and lemon trees lining the streets all of which bring joy and beauty to even the most ordinary days. Each day here was special and beautiful. Carpinteria, you will be missed and we can't wait to see you again.

Love,

The Wandering Wrights