Blown Away By Beauty

Before we get into this post, I want to preface things by stating that this blog isn't turning into a non-sports blog.  I realize that I've had several non-sports related posts recently, but I assure you that 98% of my posts will feature sports cards.

With that being said, today I wanted to share a few more of non-sports COMC purchases.  If you read my Apology to Oregon and Nevada post yesterday, then you know that I've lived my entire life in The Golden State and even though we have our faults (there are literally 500+ active faults in California), I'm still proud to be a Californian.

I could easily list reasons I want to spend the rest of my life here, but that would take up too much of our time.  So I'll get straight to the nitty gritty:

#1:  The Weather

Obviously, I can't speak for anyone other than myself.  We each have our own personal preferences, but I do not enjoy extreme cold or extreme heat.  The perfect temperature for me is between 58ºF and 68ºF, so I can wear shorts, flip flops, and a hoodie.

Here in San Jose, I'm able to live that lifestyle 60% of the time.  Sure there are a handful of days when it's too cold to wear flip flops and there are three to four months where wearing a hoodie would be considered ridiculous.  But overall, San Jose's climate is pretty moderate.


#2:  The Sight Seeing

I honestly don't get out and about as often as I'd like to.  However it's not because I lack options.

2017 Goodwin Champions World Traveler Map Relics #WT16

I could hop into my car right now and drive across the historic and beautiful Golden Gate Bridge that connects San Francisco to Marin County in approximately 90 minutes.  I've only walked across it a handful of times, but every time I have... I was blown away by its beauty.

2017 Goodwin Champions World Traveler Map Relics #WT6

If I drove in the opposite direction, I could head south along the California coast for about two hours and could cross the Bixby Creek Bridge, which is on the way to Big Sur.  This is where the Santa Lucia mountain range meets the Pacific Ocean.  It's a great place to go for a hike during the middle of the week when everyone else is at work. 

2017 Goodwin Champions World Traveler Map Relics #WT23

Lake Tahoe is about four hours east of me.  Even though it's much farther than The Golden Gate Bridge and Big Sur, I've actually been to Tahoe way more times than the other two places combined.

When I was a kid, my family would go up to Tahoe at least two or three times a year to go skiing.  In high school and college, my buddies and I would go much more frequently.  It's one of my favorite places in the world and its the setting of some of my fondest memories.

Now before you get the wrong idea... I'm not trying to compare California to anywhere else.  There are thousands of beautiful places scattered across the world.  I'm just explaining why I love living in the Bay Area while showing off some really cool map relics produced by Upper Deck last year.

I discovered this set while searching for Golden Gate Bridge cards and thought that Upper Deck was pretty creative with it.  There are 50 cards in the set, which happens to be broken down into eight tiers.  Although they're pretty tough to pull in regards to pack odds, you can find them on COMC for a few bucks each.  For a brief moment, I considered building this set.  Then I noticed that there are three cards that fall into the 1:10,436 packs tier.  These command a decent dime.

Luckily none of the ones I really wanted are super rare or expensive.  I spent $11.90 on the three relics above and another $4.75 for this card:

2017 Goodwin Champions World Traveler Map Relics #WT27

I've never actually been to Japan before, but I hope that one day I'll make it over there.

Well that's it for today.  It's your turn to share...

What are some of your favorite places to travel to within your state or country?

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!