This was the last trip before flying back to Vietnam for the VinRobotics job, more a bonding trip with a few close friends than a sightseeing one. Most of it ended up being about the food. Latin food in Miami is genuinely something else, a little oily maybe, but everything hit exactly where it needed to. The beaches were warm and the sand was coarser than I expected, though still better than anything on the Jersey shore.

We spent an afternoon in Little Havana, walked through the domino park to take photos of the games going on at the tables, ducked into a couple of cigar shops. We ended up walking most places since Uber was pricier than expected, which wasn't really a complaint, Miami is a decent city to just walk through.

The moment that actually stuck with me was getting back in the ocean. I hadn't swum in almost two years, not since I left Vietnam in 2023, and the cruise port happened to be right next to where I was in the water, so I spent a while just watching the ships take turns coming in and out while I floated around.

Vizcaya was worth the detour. The whole place makes a lot more sense once you know it was a winter retreat: the outlook post over the bay, the stage, the mangroves, the little maze all feel like they were built for exactly that kind of unhurried life. We closed out the trip with a boat tour past the row of billionaire villas on the water, and the sunset on the way back was genuinely magnificent. That stretch of the city would be a nicer place to actually live in if it weren't priced for people who don't have to think about it.

Nothing about the trip felt like something to skip. I'd go back for a different set of things to do rather than to redo any of it.

My first trip to California, out to see two friends from undergrad, Hung Nguyen and Long-Giang Vu. I flew into San Diego first and stayed a few days, then got to Yosemite the unglamorous way: a three-leg train-and-bus combination up through Los Angeles and Bakersfield to Merced, then the YARTS bus the rest of the way in. We packed sandwiches for the ride so none of us had to deal with finding food along the way.

The original plan was to stay through Christmas so we'd catch snow, but we ended up cutting it short and headed back before the holiday. The three of us split a wooden cabin, ate pretty basic stuff the whole time (pizza, eggs, bacon, burgers), and never did get the snow we were hoping for. It rained instead, wet and gloomy most of the days we were there.

Yosemite didn't care that the weather wasn't cooperating. It was still grand, still out of this world, even soaked. We ended up on the Four Mile Trail since the Mist Trail and the Nevada Trail were both closed from the rain and the snowfall the nights before. The waterfalls that afternoon were throwing off actual rainbows through a fire-orange mist as the sun went down, which is one of those things that's hard to believe until you're standing in front of it.

Everywhere we went felt pristine and completely quiet in a way that made me appreciate the National Park Service more than I expected to going in. I still owe myself the trails we didn't get to.

Went out to Bar Harbor and Acadia with Xuanhao Ong and his family, timed for what we thought would be peak fall color. We were a week or two late and missed the real peak, but it barely mattered. The cold was exactly the kind I like, and the whole place still felt breathtaking without needing to be complicated about it.

Watched the sunset from the top of Cadillac Mountain, made the stop at the lighthouse from Forrest Gump, and ate well pretty much everywhere we went. The lobster roll at Young's lived up to its reputation completely, no notes there. If I'm honest I wish we'd timed it a week or two earlier for the color, but that's really the only complaint I have. I'll go back.

Walking around the University of Washington campus in January was one of those days that felt exactly right to me: cold, quiet, hardly anyone else around. I've never understood people who complain about the cold; it's the weather that makes me want to keep walking instead of finding somewhere to sit down.

Cape Flattery was the real reason for the trip, though, and it was out of this world. The trees right at the edge grow bent and curved, worn into that shape by years of wind off the strait, and the coastline out there is more dramatic than anything a map suggests. Ruby Beach a few days later had the same feeling with arches and cliffs cut into the coast, sea stacks that look too massive to actually be standing there, driftwood scattered around like the ocean had just tossed it up. Both places were pristine in a way that's hard to explain until you're standing in front of it.