California in Feburary

Argh. I really am a binge blogger. Here I go missing another month, practically! Shame on me! I'll try to catch you up on some of my recent happenings! On February 23 and 24th, for work, I got to go on my second trip to California. It was definitely nice to escape the cold and snow for a break of moderate temperatures and sunshine!

We flew into Long Beach airport on Wednesday the 23rd. This is the smallest airport I have EVER been in. Seriously. What you see in the picture below is... the whole airport. You get on and off the planes by walking out to the tarmac and going up the steps! It was awesome! But it's a good thing it was sunny that day!
After we met with our client, we had a few hours to kill before our flight and we were able to travel down to Long Beach to see the ocean. Oh man. It's been way too long since I last saw an ocean (okay, maybe only last July, but it seems like FOREVER!).

Here's us driving through downtown on Ocean Drive:
And me out by the Pacific Ocean. They had two or three of those facilities you see behind me... I'm still not sure what they are. The water was cold, but I was just happy to feel the sand between my toes and the wind in my hair and sun on my face!
And yes, please excuse my nice business pants rolled up for the occasion ;)
Ahh.... water, sand, and sunshine.
Walking back to the car along the sidewalk high above the shore level. You had to walk down a ton of stairs to get to the actual beach. Almost sunset time. This is heaven on earth:
That night, we said goodbye to SoCal and got on a plane up to Oakland, CA and went straight to sleep. The next day, we had a mid-morning appointment with a client in Tracy, CA (about 45 minutes east of Oakland), so we drove out there. On the way, we saw some of the most beautiful, unique scenery. There were green rolling hills dotted with windmills and grazing cattle. I just couldn't believe it was so green in February! See?:
About mid-afternoon, I returned to Oakland and waited (aka napped in the hotel) until our third appointment later Thursday night. By this point, it started raining, and the slow, persistent storm continued until we left northern Cali on Friday morning. Right at dusk on Thursday night, we got to drive over the 6 mile long San Mateo Bridge into San Mateo (imagine that!) on the other side of the bay. In this picture (sorry so blurry!) you can kind of see where the bridge takes a left turn and raises up for ships to pass under:
I had so much fun in California. I hadn't been to Northern California in a really long time, but I have decided I think it is just GORGEOUS. It's got a different vibe than any other place I've been in the U.S. and I seriously think I could live there if it weren't for the outstanding taxes, house prices, gas prices, and oh yes, taxes!

For now I'll just enjoy the memory from the pictures. And I hope you enjoyed them too! :)