In April of 2005, my girlfriend and I went on a vacation to California. It was actually a "working vacation" because it was her last week with the company. Her boss wanted to do something nice for her by assigning her to work in California rather than her usual business destinations on the East coast of the United States.

Traveling six days a week for the past year on business trips had allowed her to accumulate a very large amount of frequent flier miles. So she was able to obtain my ticket on Southwest Airlines for free. I joked that my job on our trip would be to carry her work materials and chauffeur her around in the rental car.

We flew into San Diego on the first day where she was scheduled to work with a Sorority. Her job entailed organizing and assisting student groups with corporate sponsored fundraisers. The corporate sponsors received advertising and new customers in exchange for their promotional materials, while the student groups were sent a check for their efforts.

After San Diego we drove to Los Angeles to assist another student group, finally we continued northward to spend the rest of our working vacation in beautiful Santa Barbara. Click on the thumbnails below to view each of the picture galleries.