Here's a countdown of the top ten trips of my life. The following is trips 10 to 5. To see trips 5 to 1, click here.
Jennifer and I were moving to Seattle. We had just accepted new jobs there, and we were a little tired of the daily rush of L.A. We drove up in my Explorer, and had her Accord towed. It was a surprisingly smooth trip up Interstate 5, with no problems getting through Sacramento or Portland.
9--San Francisco (1996)
While I was still in L.A., I decided to take a little vacation in San Francisco. We had fun there, touring all of the landmarks that San Fran has to offer. We've gone on both the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, dined at Fisherman's Wharf, and even driven down the crazy twists of Lombard Street. And we also took in a Giants game (if only because the Dodgers were in town).
8--US 101/Canada (1994)
Jennifer and I had the trip of a lifetime, when we drove up US 101 along the coast. We only made it as far as Port Angeles, WA, opting to take ferries into Victoria and then Vancouver. After a night of fun on the town in Vancouver, we arrived back in the States and completed the US 101 journey by exiting off I-5 at Olympia. Now I am one of the few who can say they actually drove the entire length of US 101.
7--Las Vegas (1992)
What was supposed to be a weekend of fun became so much more, because that was when Jennifer and I eloped to Vegas. We did the drive-in thing, getting married by Elvis. Of course, there was some gambling involved, but we were happy together. When we got back to L.A., we had no choice but to tell our friends about our wedding. We expected them to be upset, but instead, they were happy for us. Well, some of them were upset, because they were not there for our wedding.
We returned to Vegas for our tenth wedding anniversary with some of our friends. It made up for their disappointment in some way, because Jennifer and I are still together.
6--Seattle to New York (2001)
Whenever I go to the East Coast, I always make it a point to stop in Chicago, because that's where I was born. After a short visit with my parents, Jennifer, Ashley and I toured the Big Apple. Jennifer and I showed Ashley around Manhattan, taking a tour of the Broadway theater district, Central Park and the Empire State Building. And we even took one last look at the World Trade Center, but little did we know at the time that the twin towers would be destroyed in the September 11 attacks. And we also went to Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge, and I showed her around the borough where celebrities like Jerry Seinfeld, Barbra Streisand and Larry King grew up.
The XM satellite radio in our new Tahoe came in mighty handy, as we could listen to the same station without ever switching the channel.