Prompt #20: Where is your favorite place in the whole world?
My favorite place in the whole world, geographically speaking, is either Crystal Cove (a stretch of beach along the Newport Coast in Orange County, between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach) or the Puget Sound/San Juan Islands area of the Pacific Northwest. There are a lot of places that I've never been to that could easily become favorites, but those are the two places I keep coming back to when I think of places I enjoy visiting.
Water in general (and rivers and the ocean specifically) have always been one of my favorite features of the natural world, so it's not surprising that my favorite places would be right on the water. And Crystal Cove is only about a 20-minute drive from where I live, so it's nice to be able to visit whenever I want. Sometimes I'll just drive along the coast on that section of the Pacific Coast Highway and enjoy the view and the breeze, and other times I'll stop at the Shake Shack. Not to be confused with Shake Shack the upscale burger chain, this is a little diner window with an attached deck for outdoor seating built right on top of the cliffside. You can sit there with a burger and a milkshake and enjoy incredible views of Crystal Cove and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
If you travel down a steep flight of stairs to the beach itself, you'll find another great restaurant called the Beachcomber, which is built right on the sand. You can have a meal and walk fifty yards and be in the ocean surf. Visit at sunset when the sky is vibrant orange and pink and purple and the sun is setting over the ocean and it might be the most perfect place in the world.
This one's a little harder for me because I like a lot of things, but possessions aren't generally super important to me. Even things that are particularly sentimental like our wedding photo album; at the end of the day, they're just things. Challenges like, "What are the three things you'd grab on your way out the door in the event of a fire" are always tough to answer because stuff doesn't really enter my head. I always think about those questions practically. Like, I'd probably grab the fireproof safe with all of our personal documents (passports, birth certificates, social security cards, etc.) because replacing those would be a pain. Or my computer so we can easily make all the arrangements we need for whatever the next steps are.
When I think about favorite possessions, I suppose I'd pick something sentimental. I have an Avengers: Infinity War poster on my wall that's signed by most of the cast, which Marvel gave to me as a "thank you" years ago. I have a framed photo of the first writing paycheck I ever received. And I have a signed copy of a book from Bruce Campbell with a really nice inscription from this one time I worked a book signing he was attending. Items like that are the things I think of fondly when it comes to personal possessions. I'm not sure I have a favorite so much as a collection of things I'm fond of, and would probably miss from time to time if they were suddenly gone.
