Going to California

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Normally I don’t blog about my vacations, but it is Blaugust, so why not?

February in 1983 was a cold, slushy mess. I was trying to work and go to school at the same time, and I was just pretty much over it all. I had a chance to interview for a company that was a pretty big deal at the time, but now few people remember — Digital Research, Inc. The kind of company that was called Intergalactic Digital Research before an MBA put a stop to it.

Monterey, California was a tech hotspot back then. The Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute together took the best and brightest in the armed services, gave them the best stuff, and stood back. A bunch of companies sprang from this — DRI, Symantec, a division of Sony dedicated to putting content on new-at-the-time CDROMs; Atari had a skunkworks project in a building next to DRI to put together the OS and software for what would become the Atari ST. There were a bunch of startups that never got that famous. For a time, it had everything Silicon Valley had, but prettier.

When I flew to California for the interview, I couldn’t believe how beautiful everything was. Such a contrast! I said goodbye to my family and moved to California and stayed there for 24 years.

Marriage, divorce, children, schools, playing in my first paying band, raising my kids in one of the best and most diverse places in the country… there really was nothing like it. But eventually it all came crashing down. I had to sell the house. My daughter got married and moved away. I eventually found myself back home, back in New England. I hadn’t come back to California… until now.

Marina State Beach

We lived in various places in our time here, but most of the time, we lived in Marina, a suburb of Monterey. We lived half a mile from the spot where that picture was taken.

I was thinking about Monterey and the stuff the kids and I would do, like the annual Monterey County Fair. There’s nothing particularly special about the fair, aside from the fact that it took place in Monterey. It wasn’t really a good reason to cross the country to go to — the more local Big E is way bigger — but it was an excuse.

My boyfriend has never been to Monterey, so, well, maybe we can go to the fair. Oh, and in Carmel-by-the-Sea, they have the Pacific Repertory Theater that puts on plays outside, in the forest, and this year they’re doing Wizard of Oz. Oh, and I don’t have any good pictures of the Bixby Bridge. And of course we need to drive past the old house. And… well, we came.

A Carl’s Jr medium soda and straw.

Before I could bring Kasul to see the sights, we had to stop by the really special places; the places the kids and I made so many memories of every day life. Carl’s Jr. Mountain Mike’s Pizza. The Del Monte Mall. Of course, the beach.

So we did all that the first day. Now that the important stuff is out of the way, we can maybe go to one or two more touristy spots…

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6 thoughts on “Going to California”

  1. Hey, we have a Hardees right up the road, which as far as I can tell is Carl’s Junior with a different name. Same cups and everything. As fast food burgers go, they’re pretty OK.

    Like McDs & Burger King are Tier 1
    Hardees/Carls’ Junior, maybe Wendys, Tier 2
    Then you get into your 5 Guys and stuff like that, Tier 3

    At least that’s my scale. I’m sure everyone has their own.

    Maybe I shouldn’t comment on blogs this late at night.

    • Nothing particularly special about Carl’s aside from nostalgia. I wanted to go to the In-and-Out Burger that I remembered being in the Gilroy/Morgan Hill area but didn’t see it on the way down from San Jose. There was one across from the Carl’s Jr we went to in Salinas; seemed like oit had merged with a McDonald’s or something. Same sign.

      Best chain hamburger? I do like the Red Robin burgers. Five Guys I like better for their fries.

    • I spent a lot of time in Wendys in the eighties. The food was decent but the real attraction was they didn’t care how long you stayed. We used to go to Wendys after most of the Westminster Hall comic marts, a gang of us, sometimes twenty or more, and take up most of the downstairs area, sprawl across a load of tables, spread out comics, argue and fuss and shout and generally hang out for hours and no-one ever once suggested we might think about taking the circus elsewhere. Try that in a MacDonalds and see where it gets you!

      Other than that, from where I’m sitting, California and New England both sound pretty good…

      • Both New England and California have their virtues 🙂 I miss California when I live in New England, I missed New England when I lived in California.

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