The West Coast Road Trip Awards

We thought it would be appropriate to recognize the best and worst of our trip. We hope you enjoy.

Best City Visited - Seattle - Despite being a large Metropolis, Seattle keeps a small community feel. Its beautiful scenery, interesting architecture, and cultural attraction make Seattle an intellectually stimulating environment.

Most Considerate Drivers - Oregon - Like dogs beaten into submission, Oregon drivers seem to drive under 110 km and quickly move to the right lane whenever a faster driver approaches.

Most Inconsiderate Drivers - California - There appears to be a big subset of California drivers that believe the world revolves around them and they drive like they are the only car on the road.

Best Microbrew - Pike's Pub, Seattle - OK, we only sampled microbrews at two locations, but Pike's Pub's Scottish Kilt-lifter microbrew had a great, robust flavour. To be honest, BJ's brewery (our other location) also had top notch beer. Who would have thought that Americans can make great beer.

Most Scenic State - Colorado (honourable mention to Montana) - Colorado has canyons, mountains, tunnels for incredibly dramatic scenery. Montana just makes you want to be a cowboy.

Best State - California - A state with the population of Canada in 1/20th the land area, California has diverse scenery and people.

Worst State - South Dakota - As we all know, you're dead to me!

Most Interesting Location Name - Crazy Lady Creek, Wyoming

Most Unusual Use of a Casino - Montana - You know there is a problem when you have a Laundromat Casino!

Best Car Sleeper - Lindsey - Actually car or hotel, Lindsey found a way to continuously sleep.

Most Unusual Trailer Park - After seeing a trailer park in the O.C., I truly believe that trailer parks are ingrained in the white man's culture. How a trailer park exists on land that costs over a million dollars an acre is beyond me.

Arrived Alive!

Yesterday, we decided to do an all-nighter (2nd of the trip). The lack of scenery and the fact that otherwise we would not arrive in London until past 10 pm inspired us to take this drastic course of action. We arrived safe and sound in London by 12 pm.

The trip out of Colorado was the most scenic. The mountains were quite amazing. Around Vail there was the most blatant speed trap I've ever seen where speed limits on the mountain descents were about 10 miles/hour less than elsewhere in the state. The cops were in force trapping all the tourists. Thankfully, our little car could barely keep up in the mountains, so the speed trap did not pose a big threat for us.


Once you exit the mountains and hit Denver, the scenery turns boring real fast. You simply point the car in the desired direction and hit cruise control. The rest is history.

Now for the stats:

No. of Days: 11
Total Kilometres: 11, 055
Number of States Driven Through: 17
No. of Cop Encounters: 1
No. of School Visits: 4

Tune in tomorrow where I will give out the Trip Awards.

The Long Road Home - Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado

Our tour of MBA programs has come to an end and we began our journey home. Traffic was heavy out of California, but was very sparse once we were in Utah. Not much to say about the journey. The scenery is beautiful (see pictures) and we took Lindsey down the Las Vegas Strip. She seemed a bit disappointed saying that the appearance fell short of the hype. Anyways, we got two more full days of driving then we can relax at work.

Trailer Parks in the O.C.

Today, we got to see Orange County in the daylight. It has the feel of a mashed up series of suburbs. The weather is so constantly and ridiculously perfect that the locals get nervous when a little rain comes down and 5 degrees Celsius means its time to go inside and turn the heat on. So, to summarize, Orange County is an idyllic suburbia provided you don't mind a million plus people living on top of one another.

While I visited UCI, Lindsey and my dad took a ride up the coast to Santa Monica (a pretty impressive distance). I think Lindsey likes the area as the thoughts of the nearby beaches and apartments with a beach feel are everywhere. After they picked me up, we went down to Newport Beach. It is very picturesque and rich. We went out to see the beach near one of the piers. The beach stretches a great distance in both directions. Ultimately, Newport is a beach town that has been almost overdeveloped.

Interestingly enough, my image of the OC is tarnished. There are trailer parks in the OC! Knowing the OC, I bet there are BMWs in the driveways of these trailers. When I see these parks, I can't help but think about a Trailer Park Boys special were Julian, Bubbles, and Ricky go to visit there fourth cousin on their Mother's Sister's Uncle's side. We could call it Trailer Park OC.

On to UCI. UCI has been gaining national recognition over the past few years with its progressive curriculum utilizing the newest technology. They also benefit from the fact that the Orange County region is growing at a rapid pace. Everyone wants to live in paradise. Of all the schools except Stanford (which is a different type of beast), UCI is the program that appears to be most run like a business bent on delivering a high level of customer service to its applicants and students. When I visit them, I get the impression that they are on the right track.

My visit was hosted by two students named Pong and Tiffany. Pong is an accountant from the Philippines and Tiffany and her husband own a moving and storage company. Both were great hosts and were obviously talented individuals. Tiffany had quite a vibrant presence and we exchanged frequent jokes. After my visit, Lindsey and I returned to UCI for their "happy hour" for free beer and a second opportunity to meet the students. Overall, UCI has good student body.

Well, the visits are over and Lindsey and I will have some deep thinking to do. No location came out as an obvious winner. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The decision will likely come down to the wire. Maybe I will only get accepted at one school and make my decision easy.

UC Davis - Little Pink Houses for You and Me

Today was a little more relaxed. I did not have to be to UC Davis until 11am, so we did a tour of Davis, CA. Given that Davis has a population of about 50,000 and most of that is university students, the tour was quick. The best description of Davis is "Quiet and wholesome". I expected to see John Cougar Mellancamp pop out and start singing "Pink Houses". It seems that innocent and uncorrupted.

The UC Davis business school has a lot of things going for it that the rest of the world does not know about. Most MBA ratings rate the Davis MBA as a top 50 program (given there are 50 states I think this is a good thing). I was informed that they were they received the 2nd most research funding after MIT). The current trend is for technology companies to leave silicon valley for the cheaper land and better quality of employee life out towards Sacramento (as an added bonus is that they are off the fault line). They are just starting to combine the MBA program with the great research of the university. Davis just had a VC firm with $100 million in capital set up in the town.

Good things are happening for the UC Davis MBA, but the world doesn't know enough about it. While their career department appears to be doing a stellar job luring major companies to the campus to recruit the MBAs, I feel the admission office is not selling the program strong enough. I must give the admissions team credit for delivering great customer service. Every interaction I have had with them was professional and very positive. I think they should broadcast that people admitted to UC Davis are lucky and will be greatly challenged. During my interview, while the questions were done effectively, I got the impression that I was a top notch prospect. Sure I was flattered, but this also implies that I am as good as it gets (scary thought) and the student body only goes down from here. I think with all that UC Davis has going for it, it should sell the program early in the admissions process to generate interest from more high caliber prospects.

I am not saying I am not interested in Davis. I feel that there is a lot of potential of which I could take advantage. The draw back is the feeling that my fellow classmates (and alumni) are not of high caliber. I should note here that my student escort was an excellent individual with whom I would be grateful to go to school. Unfortunately, I got the impression (possibly self imagined) that he may be as good as it gets.

Bottom line I will need to think more on UC Davis, given the other opportunities. Now, off to the OC. We left Davis at 2pm and made it to Irvine by 8:30. Unfortunately, we hit L.A. at night, so we could not see any sights. Irvine has a pretty full day planned for me, so we will see how it goes. I already have some misgivings about the traffic and how I may not have the temperament for it. Till tomorrow.