Just a few pictures from our recent trip out to Arizona and California. Tina is using a Canon t1i for most of the shots with just a kit lens.

The trip was amazing. I really can't begin to disgrace it with words any more than that. Phoenix, LA, the Bay Area. It's just another world than Orlando. Don't get me wrong, no place has ever felt more like "home" to me than Orlando. I have such an intimate knowledge of the people and places that make Orlando great, as well as the streets that connect them. It's an overwhelming sensation that is difficult to give up.

But chances are, we're going to.

We'd both give up Orlando in a heartbeat to be in the bay. It's a fond memory from my childhood, though we didn't live in the most desirable areas. Unfortunately, living in the bay area is next-to-impossible for a young professional and his undergrad-student girlfriend. Housing — as well as the other wonderful ways in which the state taxes its residents — is just unreasonable for people who want to not be miserable for the next half-decade. I'm not saying that San Francisco is out, but it's been marked off with pencil at this point.

Phoenix seems more likely, though it doesn't have the glamor of California, or Florida for that matter. It does put us closer to where we want to be without getting too uncomfortable, but it's hard to swallow that you'll have to deal with the cheap seats for a few years. This was never the case for Orlando, which is one of the nicest areas of the country you could be in.

It seems almost perfectly split down the middle between these two cities. One of these is a big risk, and may end up with us scraping along on our stomachs to eek out a living. The other puts us in the same position we're currently in, but gives us headroom to live comfortable (boring) lives while we get a toehold on the West Coast. While the answer may seem a simple one, there is one picture in the gallery that penetrates me with a millimeter ray, and it certainly wasn't taken in Arizona.

Gallery: