Year in Cities 2016

It’s funny, looking at this list. “Weren’t we in Hawaii?” No, self, that was the end of 2015. The end of last year brought big trips back-to-back, and so it’s hard to remember that 2016 was about settling in. About new routines, about figuring out how to be a family of three with two jobs and one nanny share, about figuring out what life looked like now at home.

The adventures we did have tended to come in sets. New York City and then San Diego in May. Virginia (solo) / Wyoming / Virginia (all of us) in August and September. Palm Springs and Michigan in December. Months where the suitcase stayed in storage, followed by months where it barely got unpacked.

First pickle. Confused.

Traveling with a baby — and then a toddler — has its own kind of learning curve, except you never really learn what you need to know next. Nursing on a plane is a complicated endeavor. Pumping on a plane is not something I particularly need to repeat. Every time I got selected for “random screening” — which was every time — I thought, really, random? It’s definitely not the baby strapped to my chest? Our last flight, home from Detroit, involved snacks on snacks, Play-Doh, a roll of masking tape, a hastily purchased banana, and March of the Penguins on the inflight entertainment screen — only to discover that two used water cups were the best toys of all, better than anything we could have planned or bought. And yet, I’ve spent the day researching travel credit cards with big bonuses so we can take an even longer, more complicated flight with an even more determined and wiggly child next year — so “undeterred” is the word for it, I suppose.

The best thing — oh, it’s such a cliche, but it’s also so true — is seeing places through my daughter’s eyes. Earlier this month, we were back in Palm Springs for the first time since I’d just found out I was pregnant, since I was just starting to let myself dream about life with this child. Twenty-one months later: Here is the pool where I floated with you then and float with you now; here are the mountains I could stare at all day; here is a date shake, isn’t it delicious?

Snacking in Palm Springs

Of course it’s hard to think about my 2016 without thinking of the global shitshow that surrounds it. But to the extent that I can choose the meaning of a year, I’d rather hold onto this.

Bye, 2016.

***

Year in Cities 2016

Palm Springs, CA
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA*
Oakmont, CA*
Pacific Grove, CA
Midland, MI
New York, NY
Corning, NY
Norfolk, VA
Virginia Beach, VA
Laramie, WY
A plane somewhere over the United States

About Year in Cities: All listed cities are those in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2016, with * denoting those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. 2009 here, 2010 here, 2011 here, 2012 here, 2013 here, 2014 here, and 2015 here. This is all Lydia‘s fault, via long-ago Kottke, and I thank her for bringing it to my attention.

Year in Cities 2014

I can’t say 2014 was my favorite year. I can’t say it was a year where things worked out the way I wanted them to. I can’t say it’s one I’ll treasure or reflect on with great fondness.

But. Here’s what I CAN say about 2014:

I got the opportunity to travel to see friends as they grew into new phases of their lives — be that marrying their best friends, parenting new babies, or becoming Ironmen.

I ate wonderful food in favorite cities — Portland, Pittsburgh — and discovered a surprising fondness for Phoenix and Atlanta. I drank wonderful beer. I sat in hammocks and swam in rivers and saw unbelievable landscapes from the windows of airplanes.

And, in the end, I can’t complain about a year with all of that.

Year in Cities 2014

Santa Rosa, CA
Sonoma, CA
Monte Rio, CA
Bradley, CA*
San Francisco, CA*
Aptos, CA
Chico, CA

Phoenix, AZ
Atlanta, GA
Miami, FL*
Chicago, IL*
Kalamazoo, MI
Frankfort, MI
Portland, OR
Indiana, PA
Pittsburgh, PA

A plane somewhere over the United States*

About Year in Cities: All listed cities are those in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2014, with * denoting those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. 2009 here, 2010 here, 2011 here, 2012 here, 2013 here. This is all Lydia‘s fault, via long-ago Kottke, and I thank her for bringing it to my attention.

Year in Cities 2013

Of all the ways to measure, bracket, capture, and hold a year, this is always my favorite. I’m so thankful to Lydia for bringing it into my life.

I’m used to flying east. Moving almost 3,000 miles west of your family will do that, I suppose. I’ve spent the past nine years mastering the west-to-east redeye: choosing the best routes, learning how to fall asleep in airplane seats, navigating the next day on minimal sleep and maximum coffee. So I was surprised to see that this year, I spent just one night crossing the Great Plains from the air. Instead, I flew north and south and west — yes, west, for the first time, a challenging sleep situation of an entirely new sort.

Two big trips anchored the year: Japan in March, Vermont in October. They couldn’t have been more different. Japan was urban, strange, baffling. It was about throwing my arms around the unfamiliar, about opening up to whatever I could absorb. Vermont was about drawing close, seeking comfort, holing up with the simple pleasures of beer and cheese and magazines and my husband’s company.

Sports accounted for much of my travel in ways both obvious and not: Vineman brought two nights in the Santa Rosa hotel with the weird horse paintings; Courtney and I shared a, uh, minimal hotel room before HITS Napa; Wildflower meant more camping in Bradley; Folsom meant a steamy night near the Central Valley. But sports also had something to do with the Seattle trip that brought my Pacific Northwest friends together for a wild bike ride around the city, with a Tahoe reunion with some of my closest friends, and with another trip to the Central Coast, where I learned that a crisp dip in Lake San Antonio is a good antidote to a beer festival.

As I move deeper into my 30s, I believe more and more in the adage that there are families you get and families you make. December, for me, was about all of those families. I wrote most of this on a plane pointed back west, after 10 days and seven states of road-tripping between parents and in-laws. In Michigan, I read Curious George with one niece, talked about wedding plans with another, and helped cook breakfast for my in-laws’ anniversary. And in Pennsylvania, I helped my parents pack up my childhood home: sorting through boxes of the funny little treasures that make up our lives; unearthing a Spirograph and junior high planners full of inside jokes I don’t remember; seeing the card my dad used to propose to my mom.

And now I head north again, to Sonoma, to once again huddle with my California family — a growing family, with two babies at the house this year! — to start dreaming about the big, blank year to come.

2013 YEAR IN CITIES

Bradley, CA
Dillon Beach, CA
Folsom, CA
Napa, CA
Paso Robles, CA
San Francisco, CA*
San Luis Obispo, CA
Santa Cruz, CA
Santa Rosa, CA
Sonoma, CA
Tahoma, CA

Ann Arbor, MI
Midland, MI
Oceanport, NJ
Newark, NJ
Portland, OR
Indiana, PA
Addison, TX
Vergennes, VT
Greensboro, VT
Seattle, WA

Kyoto, Japan
Takayama, Japan
Tokyo, Japan

A plane over the Pacific Ocean*
A plane somewhere over the US

About Year in Cities: All listed cities are those in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2013, with * denoting those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. 2009 here, 2010 here, 2011 here, 2012 here.

Year in Cities 2012

There are plenty of ways to sum up a year, to reflect on the previous 12 months or 365 366 days. But Year in Cities is the one that sticks for me, year after year, because it perfectly encompasses what I like to remember about a year: Where I was. Who was there. What I saw.

Lake San Antonio, April 2012

Races accounted for a fair bit of travel this year — Berlin, of course, but also two trips to Lake San Antonio and one night in a hotel near Sacramento before my first triathlon. I like racing this way, and traveling this way; covering new ground on foot or bike (or in a body of water, I guess) always makes me so happy that I’ve gravitated toward activities that take me outside.

Lake Michigan sunset, July 2012

We saw family in Philadelphia and Michigan, saw friends marry in Madison and Bolinas, and spent the night in a winery in Paso Robles.

At Oktoberfest, October 2012

And right now I’m writing this from the passenger seat of a car on a beautiful December day, riding up to the year’s final destination: a house just yards from the beach, where I’ll ring in 2013 with food and friends and a trunk full of beer. I love when my travels take me to further-flung places, but sometimes it’s good to remember all the adventures lurking just around the corner.

Without further ado, 2012’s cities:

Cloverdale, CA
San Francisco, CA*
San Luis Obispo, CA
Paso Robles, CA
Bradley, CA*
Palm Springs, CA
Roseville, CA
Bolinas, CA
Stinson Beach, CA
Dillon Beach, CA

Midland, MI*
Frankfort, MI

Rochelle, IL
Chicago, IL

Philadelphia, PA

Dallas, TX

Madison, WI

Berlin, GER
Munich, GER

A plane somewhere over the U.S.*

About Year in Cities: All listed cities are those in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2012, with * denoting those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. 2009 here, 2010 here, 2011 here, and the whole shebang stolen from Lydia.

Year in Cities 2011

My Year in Cities 2011 is both awesome and terrifying. Awesome because … not to get all braggy, but look at it! And terrifying because I’m not sure any other year of my life will live up to this one in its sheer volume of travel.

San Francisco from the air, February 2011

2011 brought a European adventure that was practically a decade in the making and took months of planning and researching and money-stockpiling to pull off. I will be thrilled if an opportunity on that scale arises again, but if it never does, I’ll know I made the most of this one.

Vigeland Sculpture Park, Oslo, June 2011

I’ll be closing out 2011 in the same place I started the year, surrounded by friends and good food and great beer at our rental house. Travels this year managed to be both friend-centric and friend-incidental; we always had multiple reasons for going somewhere, and if we could buy our friends a good meal and crash on their couch, even better. Not as many repeat visits, though, which suggests there are plenty of folks who need to claim a spot on our 2012 itinerary.

Mojave National Preserve, March 2011

Speaking of which: We already know a couple of places where our adventures will take us. We’re hoping to get to the East Coast for the first time in way too long. We’ve got a Michigan lake trip on the docket for the summer, and I have three bonus days off work that essentially have to be used to create long weekends rather than folding into a larger vacation, so anywhere with a short flight or a red-eye is fair game. I can’t wait to see what it brings.

Walking in Budapest, May 2011

Year in Cities 2011

San Francisco, CA*
Cloverdale, CA*
Los Angeles, CA
San Luis Obispo, CA
Barstow, CA
Palm Springs, CA
Eureka, CA
St. Helena, CA
Miami, FL
Chicago, IL
Midland, MI*
Portland, OR
Hillsboro, OR
Seattle, WA
Barcelona, Spain
Budapest, Hungary
Munich, Germany
Berlin, Germany
Stockholm, Sweden
Oslo, Norway
Copenhagen, Denmark

(And transit nights: Three on trains (somewhere between Barcelona and Zurich, somewhere between Zurich and Budapest, somewhere between Berlin and Malmo, Sweden), one on a ferry (somewhere between Oslo and Copenhagen), and a handful spent on various airplanes.)

About Year in Cities: All listed cities are those in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2011, with * denoting those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. 2009 here, 2010 here, and as always, the whole shebang stolen from Lydia.