Retirement Communities Before Preschool.
Downtown Albany is unfortunate. There is one coffeehouse in downtown that is shockingly vacant on a Thursday morning. The wireless internet disappears mysteriously even though there is only one user. The most exciting moment outside was a kid carrying a bottle a Mountain Dew almost as large as he was.
I should have packed lighter on my journeys. Carrying around two bags and a bicycle became overbearing and sometimes logistically unreasonable. If I had a touring bicycle my tour would have been dramatically different; my bicycle is so bare it does not have a brake much less space for traveling sacks.
Dave Flores and I had dinner with Nicole and her boyfriend in a quaint little Chinese restaurant in downtown San Francisco. Finding a place to eat in downtown was met with oddity - Nicole plus one chose clichéy places, Dave was neutral, and I wanted to eat at the most authentically dirty joint in the neighborhood.
So it was particularly grand when a fly flew by our table during dinner. Nicole was appalled, plus one was neutral, and Dave and I had a holler. It was after all, keeping it authentic in San Francisco. Everywhere Dave and I visited the prominent question for our actions were “is it authentic?” The best burrito I have ever eaten at a restaurant happened in the Mission District. It made my jowls pitter-patter.
Dave and I visited two museums, the Exploratorium and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The Exploratorium was terrible on my attention deficit disposition (not disorder) and I found myself needing to focus on one activity or risk becoming overwhelmed. So I spent a disproportional amount of time attempting to balance an object despite my inability to balance.
At SFMOMA I found the Robert Frank’s Les Américains photo exhibition and was lost on the third floor for an entire afternoon. Words are expressionless as to my awe of the exhibit. Jenny Lewis was wrong, not any idiot could place the things he likes on display.
By the time I arrived in Monterey Bay I was ready to sleep. When Megan called me to ask where I was mid-day I responded with a “just woke up” snicker. One day Megan and I visited the world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium. I question how the aquarium became world famous.
There was an exhibit in the aquarium that was set up as a diner. And in a conservation-minded aquarium it was odd to learn how to eat better lobster and tuna. The words “what the funk” came into mind. It would be similar to seeing an exhibit proclaiming Hitler’s notions of Darwinism at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
On my last day at Monterey Bay a white sports utility vehicle ran me off the road with two bicycles mounted on its hood. Again…“what the funk Monterey?” Megan the vegan chef made tons of delicious food. I probably gained ten pounds in Monterey Bay just from eating all the decadent fruit I could carry from farmer’s markets…and vegan cupcakes. And to top it all off, I got to see Sasha Grey make her big screen debut.
I almost missed my stop in Eugene. I had to shout at the conductor to let me off the train because I had been mindlessly staring out a window while everyone else deported. Then I hitchhiked to Corvallis with a Christian Evangelical met via Craigslist.
On my first afternoon in Corvallis I rode (walked) up a mountain. I met the group of fixed gear merry men lead by Eilif Knutson. I played bicycle polo for the first time. I even scored, and then rode into a fence. It was brilliant. A bicycle parade with boom box cemented my fondness towards Corvallis.
Jeremy Haines met me at the Union Square when I arrived in Portland. After unloading my baggage at Carrie and Martin’s luxurious living space in Downtown (in the middle of the bloody Pearl District!) Jeremy and I bicycled to Last Thursday. I found it humorous that I never attended a Last Thursday when I lived in Portland.
I met a lovely girl from Clarkston, Michigan who was selling her photography and hoping to get noticed in the big city. Her photo blog informed viewers that her dreams of grandeur were down to forty dollars, food stamps, and a pack of smokes. But as Carrie noted, “she should have found a day job first.”
The Original is a diner converted from an old bank in the financial district of Portland. Carrie and I had breakfast there; it is the only place you can get a donut burger or in my case: a side order of gummy worms with my omelet. The food was mediocre but the concept of an anything goes diner is fantastically Portland.
Last night I almost lost my old red Nalgene bottle. I dislike thinking that I could ever be sentimental, but I was somewhat disappointed when it was trashed while I was in the restroom. Fortunately the cleaning lady had just tossed it in her somewhat clean trash bin. All my material possessions are now accounted for.
Mediocracy. Happens to Everyone.