the suns of the profits
Hello Everybody!
this is a long post about my recent road-trip. feel free to let your eyes glaze over, but there are pictures! and bad spelling.
i returned from my road-trip-of-coolness last monday, so i figured it was about time i actually updated and let everyone know how it went. it went awesome of course. awesomely? swimmingly yes. we had been planning for and anticipating this trip for so long that at times it felt like it was some obscure object of our desires (bun bun) that would never actuall occur. it did. thirteen days of driving, spending money, shopping, relaxing, sleeping, and walking-- lots and lots and many more lots of walking. the walking did me good, i learned that double-good on this trip. beginnings---
the night before we left on the trip, ryan had to work, i had a meeting to attend, and the car needed packed up, so we created the following sequence: ryan came to my apartment to start some laundry and take a nap before work started (7 p.m.), i took his car to micron so i could go to my meeting and stay after to type up the meeting notes and prepare some info. for my replacement etc, ryan drove my car to work so that i could load his car with all of our crap when i got back home, which i did. i packed my stuff, filled the car (with both our belongings and gasoline as welll as costco supplies of juice, water, pretzels, and powerbars), and went to bed.
when ryan got off work at 7 a.m., we set directly out to california. ryan, just having worked a twelve hour shift, was able to be awake enough to drive from boise, through ontario, burns, and lakeview, oregon! i took over in lakeview, where we got some gas and i finished the trip to whiskeytown lake, just a few miles west of redding, california. we went to the oak bottom campground where i have many fond memories of staying as a kid. the campground was, by all standards, deserted, so we got to pick our choice of campsites. we got a groovy one right on the lakeshore with cute geeese and a bear box. we set up the tent, blew up the air mattress, looked at the lake, and decided we were deathly hungry. eating pretzels and water all day was not as satisfying as we had thought, though it WAS filling. we quickly drove the ten miles to redding and stopped at the first place we could find to eat at... quizno's. best sandwiches ever! we got our food and hurried back to whiskeytown so that we wouldnt get caught out after dark and end up as replacements for the innards of our bear box. after having driven for nine hours, we were more than ready to crash with the sun.
the night was cold. the night was raiiny, which kept me pretty anxious worrying about the tent leaking and whether we were going to drown in our sleep. the ground was super fucking hard, for the air mattress was eventually a mattress sans air! the night was loud.. those geese arent so cute when you realize that they never go to sleep, and that they are loud, and that they really really like to talk to each other across the lake all night long. the blankets that we had brought turned out to not be the proper size for two freezing people to wrap up in. it was the night that never ended my friends and no amount of futile cuddling and clothes-adding was very helpful. but it was super fun!
in the morning, we packed up the tent and our stuff, and headed to the edge of the lake so i could take some photos and then headed to the whiskeytown cemetary so that i could put some flowers on my mother's grave and get some pictures of that. the only set of pictures i was able to take though, produced this one in which you can not see quite how cold it is,yet you can see how it is totally rockin' in beauty:
i didnt get any pictures of the cemetary, even though it was really beautiful and sad and touching, because i was too disappointed in the fact that i had lost my mother! i mean, i lost her place of burial. i mean, where we buried the container holding her ashes. when she diied, we got a plot and had a funeral but there existed no money for a grave marker. my sisters had said that they found the spot and had placed stuff there, but when i went to the site they described, it was obvious that someone had been scratching in the dirt and uncovered an actual headstone under all the needles--a headstone belonging to a woman that died a year after my mom. so, fourteen years after the funeral, and the first time i had been back to see her, i couldnt find her anywhere. i looked all over but there was no sign, which there wouldnt be. i had brought some crappy flowers and a planter upon which i had written her name and all i was left with was some stupid crap in my arms that made me feel like an ass. it was horrible actually, to realize that i had lost her again. i suppose the only way to find out where she actually is located, would be to contact the funeral home, but who the hell remembers who the funeral director's were? all i have is my memory of being a 15 year old that didnt want to be at the funeral and was mad at himself for not crying...but i DO remember the general view of the cemetary that i had at the funeral and placed my stupid planter in an empty square that i guesstimated may actually be where she is. i brought the flowers home (fakes) and put them in her old wicker vase thing, but it makes me sad to look at them. i didnt take any pictures at that place, not even of the heartbreaking rain-soaked hunchback teddy bear or the sad cell phone, because i wanted to get far far away.
we drove a couple of miles back towards redding, to a little ghost town type thing called shasta, where we rambled among some brick ruins and sloshed around in the mud (magdalene for my feet please!) and avoided little children and took some photos. it was half-sunny and all-green and very interesting, because, having grown up around there, my parents had never actually let us stop there and look around. after spending a while taking pictures and making a few phone calls, we headed back west, for the three hour or so trip to mckinleyville, california, via weaverville, willow creek, and numerous landslides and resulting clean-up delays.
we got to my brother toby's house in mckinleyville and spent the rest of the day chilling with him, his wife crystal, and little willow and winter. the next morning, ryan and i went to hang out at mad river beach for a few hours, where we played in the waves, picked up cool rocks, sand dollars, and footprints, and walked all the way to the mouth of the river where we made mini-avalanches and played with slimy tree-flotsam.
another place we visited, one of many, while in humboldt county was the little town of trinidad, a few miles north of mckinleyville and we went walking on the trail around trinidad head, a rocky peninsula thing which had great views of the surrounding ocean and a cross on top dedicated to people that died many many moons ago and wasnt in english. after walking the trail around the head, we went down to the pier and walked around, looking at seagulls, crab hunters, and waves. it almost made me sick just watching the little boats bob around, and it was windy and cold, but it was oh so awesome.
next day, we took off for eureka, california and tramped around downtown with the hobos and the raindrops and the los bagels and shopped around as my momma told me. we walked down to the carson mansion, which is this big awesome gawdy amazing victorian house-turned-gentleman's club out on the edge of the bay in old town eureka. i took some photos and then we headed across the three bridges that traverse the mouth of humboldt bay and stopped on woodley island, where i proceeded to take some pcitures of cool boats at dock and the super awesome statue that stands in memorial to those who have lost their lives at sea. a humongous fisherman with a net... i snapped him with the humongous lumber company in the background, not realiizing that it sort of looks cooler than the statue itself. it looks gigantic and evil.. and thus interesting.
one evening, drove just a few miles down the road and ended up at camel rock beach, where we took some more pictures and kept out eyes both on the hot surfers and the sun, which was going to set, seeing as how we wanted to see both an ocean sunset and a full moon from a surfer. stupid wetsuits. stupid clouds. we played around in the sand and waves (ryan found some sea anemones) and i tried not to die on slippery barnacle rocks. it was relaxing, and enjoyable, and really made me miss living in that area. there is nothing better than the pacific northwest. omg so true. we ended up leaving before the sun set because of the clouds in the way and because we didnt want to keep toby and crystal up too late with our return. people with kids go to sleep early!
we woke up early on the day that we headed to newport oregon because it was going to take over seven hours to get there and we wanted to be sure and arrive before the campground closed and we wanted to stop at the *insert drum roll here* trees of mystery, just outside of crescent city california, where everything is named after a tsunami. i had never actually stopped at the trees of mystery before, so i really enjoyed walking the trails and the humongous trees, which never turn out in photos because how the fuck can you capture THAT on film? its impossible. we took the skytrail (a thingy thing that you get in and climb up the mountain, sort of like a ski lift but enclosed) and it was freaky and high and scary, but the view from the top was amazing. they had built a huge deck from which you could see all the way out to the ocean, and, on the other side, into the vast wilderness of the yurok tribe and their redwood experiment-ridden land and condor nests and its always fun being higher than the fog that the trees and mountains produce. the top of the world. i highly recommend stopping if you are ever thereby. i took a picture looking up into this most gigantic of trees, a good 20 feet across? and it came out looking like a normal tree. for shame. the insignia for the trees of mystery is a silhouette of a native american warrior, sitting atop his horse, exhausted or dying or forlorn or cold or wet, you cant really tell, and its just about the the saddest thing ever. i coudlnt afford a statue, so ryan got me a snowglobe with the indian and his horse in front of pretty trees and its full of glitter. that made me feel better. he's not sad that his land and country have been turned into a tourist attraction, he's just tired from dancing at the disco all evening!
the oregon coast consists basically of two things: ocean and pretty. half rain and half sun and all fun, we finally arrived beverly beach state park and acquired the keys to our fabulous yurt. i hereby proclaim that yurts > (tents X infinity). we unloaded our evening's wares and then ran under the bridge to the beach and spent a while ocean-looking. then, as is usual for people that don't have a ton of food in the car, we drove back the few miles to newport and got some dinner, after perusing the oh-so-tiny walmart (travesty). we rushed back to beverly beach to play at the ocean (ryan actually walked out into the waves, but i didnt have shorts and didnt want to freezing wet. i wish i had. we missed the sunset that evening as well because there were too many clouds. :( there were emo kids taking emo pictures. there was a big ancient root, and there were scary tsunami zone signs that were comical yet unnerving. first touch of an earthquake and i was prepared to run for the hills. it is NOT a good idea to watch a show on the learning channel about the cascadia subduction zone and what an earthquake along that fault would do to the northern coasts of the united states. especially when they mentioned in that show very specifically that those that were situated just about where we were sleeping that night, would only have mere minutes to escape before the tsunami struck. yay! i think living at sea level anywhere near an ocean would scare me to death now. stupid internet and its ability to show me what happened in indonesia, etc. in 2004. shut up tyler.
the next morning, we awoke from our peaceful yurt slumber and packed up the car, heading back towards newport to take advantage of the beauty and wonder that is the historic bay district. we went to the beach of beverly one last time and said goodbye to the ocean for the remainder of the trip. i was sad. oceania! *throatsong* once we got down to the oldtimey awesome portion of newport, we parked and walked up and down the street, stopping in shops and buying stuff along the way. a pretty little town, i need to go again methinks. we kept hearing the sea lions barking and roaring, and i just assumed that they were in the newport aquarium or out in the bay, but pretty soon we could tell they were really close because fuck are they loud! we turned the corner and saw that there was a small pier jutting into the water in L shape and that, within the L, the local whoevers had placed some floating platforms below for the sea lions to sun themselves on and scratch themselves to their hearts content. they were practically breaking their necks to get sun on themselves and they kept talking and roaring (who would have thought they could roar like a lion??!) and they were humongous and cute and made my heart happy. we took a lot of pictures and laughed and i wanted to take one home. the best one even had my hairdo. a sea lion with a fauxhawk. he was the best. i turned around on the dock and snapped a picture of the big awesome bridge that stretches across the mouth of the bay, and it was a pretty day. and i saw that all was good.
from newport, we drove ourselves inland, to bring ourselves to the wonderous city of portland, oregon. we got into the city, and arrived at our hotel, the governor hotel, right downtown, which was a joy. the valet took the car and we didnt have to worry about parking or driving after that. we had deliberately gotten a hotel that was downtown and near to powell's bookstore, where we were prepared to spend millions of dollars. i didnt realize how great the location was though, for shopping, and walking and enjoyment. my friend boobie jo drove to portland from vancouver (across the river) and hung out in our hotel with us for a minute or two. we all set out and walked around downtown for quite a while. we got pizza at rocco's and did some preliminary browsing at powell's city of books (!@@!) and then hung out in the room for a little while. i got a che guevara journal and made boobie jo write in it and we admired the pretty view from out hotel window. sixth floor views of downtown prettiness. i took some photos from the window, which actually turned out to be the only photos i took in portland. i am always rather half-assed when it comes to taking pictures. i forget that i have my camera sometimes.
after boobie jo left, we got a call from megan, informing us that she was free from her singing duties. i guess she was on a cross-country singing tour with her college people or something. i am bad at knowing what's going on. ha. ryan and i walked the 8 or 9 blocks to her hotel and rescued her. we walked around for while and ended up back at the governor again, hanging out and yacking. great fun. we then set out in search of food...which was a near-impossible feat at ten at night in downtown portland. i had no idea the whole city goes to sleep at nine.. thats so weird aint it? we found a coffee shop with a muffin or something and sat down for some good talking. it was a cool place and the server was hot, so i enjoyed it. i may mention that every boy i saw in portland was hot. heaven. i was pretty tired because i am old and started to fall asleep at the coffee shop, so we decided to walk megan back to her hotel. i am sure that ryan and megan assumed i was unhappy or uncomfortable, but i was just tired. and i always SEEM uncomfortable, though i am rarely actually so. by the time we reached home, the hotel, i was pretty much beat and fell asleep right quickly.
we spent the next day walking around, most fascinatingly at the portland art museum. i think we spent about four hours there, and that was with me not even taking the time i would have had i not had other things to do with my day. museums can occupy my time to no end. give me 12 hours and a good art museum and all i will ask for is where the bathroom is. lol. they had a little bit out of every genre on earth, and it all rocked. i got to see my first real-life monet too, which was revelatory. seeing one of the many lily painting that exist--seeing it up close-- being there, you really get a sense of how those brushstrokes are very little more than the results of a man's brain translating light onto canvas. it was almost a shame that they placed it in such an abrupt place. up the stairs and bam! right there, no warning, i may not have noticed it right away if ryan had not stated something to the effect of omg monet! he has such better eyes than me. monet. sigh. i even found a painting by robert henri among the numerous paintings and was proud of myself for noticing him. i love his paintings for some reason. some reason besides the fact that they are amazing. everything is amazing. shit. i must go to the boise art museum now. i havent been in years. we were sad that the seattle art museum is closed until next year, so we really enjoyed the portland art museum, knowing that it would be the only one on the trip. we then spent a few hours shopping at powell's. i basically filled up my basket and gave up. i only shopped in one section, and went reverse alphabetically, and had to stop at like... S... because my arms hurt. i had more money to spend, but thought that i was pretty well satisfied. i am lucky i do not live near there. every book on earth. thank you jesus. we spent one more night at the governor and then, after checking out at noon the next day (after an hour spent at everyday music), we headed to seattle and left behind us the beautiful city of porltand, full of awesomeness, great stores, way the hell too many bums, and lots of music stores.
to seattle. i think that ryan and i made a great driving team. him with the wheel and the map in my lap. having one person decipher and one person driving is, i think, ideal when driving in cities bigger than boise. i seemed to remember seattle being really impossible to navigate from my trip there in 2001, but we made out pretty well actually. of course, we stayed downtown most of the time, which helped us to avoid the interstate and exits. when we first showed up in seattle we found our hotel pretty easily. it was the quality inn or something right off of denny and right next to the outlet of the tunnel thing and a few blocks from the space needle. the hotel was kinda skeevy, but only because they were working on it and we were used to the grandeur the governor that we had partaken of the previous two nights. our room had a humongous whirlpool two person bathtub thing right next to the bed! that was heaven. taking baths in big baths is fun to the max. after we checked in and relaxed a bit, we got out of the room and walked around downtown for a bit. bigger buildings than portland, no bums that bothered you, and more hills, but generally the same feeling of big city neato-ness. sure, seattle is no new york city or san francisco, but it's damn big to me. we walked around and turned toward the water and walked downhill like homer and then headed back up to the hotel. the great thing about having a room near the space needle is that you can always find your way there because the needle is visible from anywhere on the end of town. the fact that no tall buildings have been built around it really helps. we didnt really do much that evening because we were nearing broke status and we were going to be there for three nights, so we were in no hurry.
when we woke up the next day, we set off a-walking and a-shopping. i spent a ton of money and ended up with clothes that i needed badly. a zippy, a hoody, a denim jacket, and lots of pants. i found shoes that i wanted as at rochester's big and tall store of awesomeness. i so have to order those! anyways... we had made reservations to eat dinner that night at the restaurant at the top of the space needle, but i had no clothes to wear that didnt look like ass. so i ended up getting some pants at the gap. now, i traveled a long way to seattle and i ended up shopping at a lot of the stores that they have in boise, except in seattle, they are like... three floors of shopping heaven. and abercrombie & fitch had a real live shirtless boy standing in the door greeting people. le sigh. anyways, we ended up in old navy, where i got a shirt that i could wear. mmm...long sleeve brown shirt. sexy. my ensemble was complete. i also bought stuff at urban outfitters, and we went through nordstroms, banana republic, american apparel, etc. i am not much of a shopper, but i really had a great time that day. maybe i dont shop much because i dont have access to totally tubular shopping places!
after returning to the room with our booty-loot, we rested and then headed back out and ended up walking up to the convention center and the shopping stuff up on 6th and partly up the hill to whatever is over i-5 from there. then we headed back so that we could shower and prepare ourselves for dinner at the needle. we showed up all decked out and refreshed from the walk, and they whisked us up the elevator straight to the restaurant. now, the restauran rotates around the needle ever-so-slowly, but you totally notice it. it takes around 45 minutes for it to rotate completely, and we ended up staying for like.. a rotation and a half. the view was so spectacular. the space needle is so spectacular looking anyways. i love it. i took some pictures of the needle at night and the view from within. i had some delicious pork chop things with pancetta hash and sweet potato shreds, and it was good. after dinner, we walked up the stairs to the observation deck directly above us and spent a while looking out over the city. it was windy and freezing and exhilerating. we specifically made our dinner reservation for late so that we would have a great city view. unbelievable. after that, it was crash time. to bed, to dream of lights and wind and, um, jesus?
the next morning, we got up early and headed over to pike street to stroll through the market. i picked a bad route for us to walk down on the way there and i felt a bit scared with the people that we were walking around, but i was probably just being a wuss. i dont think i shall take first street as a normal route again though. though i did like the concrete waves in the underpass...that was cool. the public market at pike place was humongouser than i ever thought it was! after a long time, we finally found the special famous fish-throwing corner and that was fun. we found the pig that everyone fondles too and it was cute. i suck at photography and got a bad picture of ryan on the pig, which made me sad because it would have rocked, but such is life. we couldnt find the bubble gum walls though! but we had fun walking around anyways, and i shot some pictures that were non-horrible. we then had to run back to the hotel so we could check out on time. we had three hours to kill between checkout time for that hotel and checkin time at our other hotel. we whipped out the map and headed up to capitol hill, which i had thought was where carley had taken me one time to a big gay store. we did not find the gay store, but we found a kickass bookstore with gay stuff and mcsweeneys and an edward gorey version of an h.g. wells book that i bought for ryan because he loves the gorey. we also found starbucks for a bathroom and java chip and, joy of joys, the everyday music store, where i forked out a shitload of money for lots of stuff that i love. jane siberry, liza minnelli, cathy dennis (!), and emmylou harris even. i love that store. both of them that we went to were just fantabulous.
after spending three hours in the rain and stores, we headed back downtown and checked in at our final hotel of the trip, the hotel max, which was so very cool. very cool. go there. after some problems with my credit card (oops), we sent the car via the valet and got to our tiny, yet great, room that overlooked the street and was on the 7th floor. we set out to walking around downtown again and ended up walking all the way to the tallest building in town, but i cant remember the name of it. is it the columbia building?? i took pictures of it from a few blocks away near an arch. it was almost dark so they didnt turn out super hot. but we finally made it back to the hotel and i took a picture out the window in which you can see my reflection, but it still looks kinda cool. the hotel was great and the bed was the best bed ever! we went to sleep pretty early so that we could take full advantage of our pre-checkout time the next morning. on the agenda: daylight space needle, and experience music project.
we woke up early and headed for the space needle so we could get in some good daylight views of upper seattle. being up there in the daylight was totally different. you didnt feel as high when you could see the ground really well, but i got some awesome pictures and enjoyed the sun! after that, we spent a few hours at the experience music project, which was really cool. we ran out of time and had to run back to the hotel for checkout, but it was great. lots and lots of jimi hendrix stuff! we didnt get to see the museum of science fiction place, so i shall go next time!
after we checked out of the hotel max, we zoomed on over to pioneer square and spent a few hours taking the underground tour, which is a tour of some of the fuckin creepy underground walkways and sidewalks in the old parts of seattle. the original street level that got buried when they decided to raise the city levels everywhere. hard to explain but creepy as hell and i didnt even get any pictures because i was to busy being fascinated and weirded out. :( when that was done, we had lunch at the elliot bay book company's downstairs cafe (that was actually built using part of their underground) which was really neato. i wanna live there. with that, we headed out of town and towards moscow, idaho.
we spent the night being entertained by some of ryan's friends from the university of idaho and watching the 40-year-old virgin. his friends were super-cool and it was a good way to end the trip. i tried to get a hold of marcus the next day, but i assume he was in class...trips are too hectic! he shall forgive me. we drove down highway 95, passing through whitebird on the way, where i snapped some beautiful pictures of the historic valley and the crazy landscapes. it was a pretty day, and the scenery sloped up from the green rainy grassy to the snowy white hilly all in one swoop.
after travelling back down through mccall, cascade, and horshoebend, we jaunted on over to emmett, where i met like.. all of ryans family members, who were all super nice. then we headed for boise, got to my apartment and collapsed. much like i am going to do right now, after typing this blog/journal for a million hours. i hope you read the whole thing, there will be a quiz afterwards!
this is a long post about my recent road-trip. feel free to let your eyes glaze over, but there are pictures! and bad spelling.
i returned from my road-trip-of-coolness last monday, so i figured it was about time i actually updated and let everyone know how it went. it went awesome of course. awesomely? swimmingly yes. we had been planning for and anticipating this trip for so long that at times it felt like it was some obscure object of our desires (bun bun) that would never actuall occur. it did. thirteen days of driving, spending money, shopping, relaxing, sleeping, and walking-- lots and lots and many more lots of walking. the walking did me good, i learned that double-good on this trip. beginnings---
the night before we left on the trip, ryan had to work, i had a meeting to attend, and the car needed packed up, so we created the following sequence: ryan came to my apartment to start some laundry and take a nap before work started (7 p.m.), i took his car to micron so i could go to my meeting and stay after to type up the meeting notes and prepare some info. for my replacement etc, ryan drove my car to work so that i could load his car with all of our crap when i got back home, which i did. i packed my stuff, filled the car (with both our belongings and gasoline as welll as costco supplies of juice, water, pretzels, and powerbars), and went to bed.
when ryan got off work at 7 a.m., we set directly out to california. ryan, just having worked a twelve hour shift, was able to be awake enough to drive from boise, through ontario, burns, and lakeview, oregon! i took over in lakeview, where we got some gas and i finished the trip to whiskeytown lake, just a few miles west of redding, california. we went to the oak bottom campground where i have many fond memories of staying as a kid. the campground was, by all standards, deserted, so we got to pick our choice of campsites. we got a groovy one right on the lakeshore with cute geeese and a bear box. we set up the tent, blew up the air mattress, looked at the lake, and decided we were deathly hungry. eating pretzels and water all day was not as satisfying as we had thought, though it WAS filling. we quickly drove the ten miles to redding and stopped at the first place we could find to eat at... quizno's. best sandwiches ever! we got our food and hurried back to whiskeytown so that we wouldnt get caught out after dark and end up as replacements for the innards of our bear box. after having driven for nine hours, we were more than ready to crash with the sun.
the night was cold. the night was raiiny, which kept me pretty anxious worrying about the tent leaking and whether we were going to drown in our sleep. the ground was super fucking hard, for the air mattress was eventually a mattress sans air! the night was loud.. those geese arent so cute when you realize that they never go to sleep, and that they are loud, and that they really really like to talk to each other across the lake all night long. the blankets that we had brought turned out to not be the proper size for two freezing people to wrap up in. it was the night that never ended my friends and no amount of futile cuddling and clothes-adding was very helpful. but it was super fun!
in the morning, we packed up the tent and our stuff, and headed to the edge of the lake so i could take some photos and then headed to the whiskeytown cemetary so that i could put some flowers on my mother's grave and get some pictures of that. the only set of pictures i was able to take though, produced this one in which you can not see quite how cold it is,yet you can see how it is totally rockin' in beauty:
i didnt get any pictures of the cemetary, even though it was really beautiful and sad and touching, because i was too disappointed in the fact that i had lost my mother! i mean, i lost her place of burial. i mean, where we buried the container holding her ashes. when she diied, we got a plot and had a funeral but there existed no money for a grave marker. my sisters had said that they found the spot and had placed stuff there, but when i went to the site they described, it was obvious that someone had been scratching in the dirt and uncovered an actual headstone under all the needles--a headstone belonging to a woman that died a year after my mom. so, fourteen years after the funeral, and the first time i had been back to see her, i couldnt find her anywhere. i looked all over but there was no sign, which there wouldnt be. i had brought some crappy flowers and a planter upon which i had written her name and all i was left with was some stupid crap in my arms that made me feel like an ass. it was horrible actually, to realize that i had lost her again. i suppose the only way to find out where she actually is located, would be to contact the funeral home, but who the hell remembers who the funeral director's were? all i have is my memory of being a 15 year old that didnt want to be at the funeral and was mad at himself for not crying...but i DO remember the general view of the cemetary that i had at the funeral and placed my stupid planter in an empty square that i guesstimated may actually be where she is. i brought the flowers home (fakes) and put them in her old wicker vase thing, but it makes me sad to look at them. i didnt take any pictures at that place, not even of the heartbreaking rain-soaked hunchback teddy bear or the sad cell phone, because i wanted to get far far away.
we drove a couple of miles back towards redding, to a little ghost town type thing called shasta, where we rambled among some brick ruins and sloshed around in the mud (magdalene for my feet please!) and avoided little children and took some photos. it was half-sunny and all-green and very interesting, because, having grown up around there, my parents had never actually let us stop there and look around. after spending a while taking pictures and making a few phone calls, we headed back west, for the three hour or so trip to mckinleyville, california, via weaverville, willow creek, and numerous landslides and resulting clean-up delays.
we got to my brother toby's house in mckinleyville and spent the rest of the day chilling with him, his wife crystal, and little willow and winter. the next morning, ryan and i went to hang out at mad river beach for a few hours, where we played in the waves, picked up cool rocks, sand dollars, and footprints, and walked all the way to the mouth of the river where we made mini-avalanches and played with slimy tree-flotsam.
another place we visited, one of many, while in humboldt county was the little town of trinidad, a few miles north of mckinleyville and we went walking on the trail around trinidad head, a rocky peninsula thing which had great views of the surrounding ocean and a cross on top dedicated to people that died many many moons ago and wasnt in english. after walking the trail around the head, we went down to the pier and walked around, looking at seagulls, crab hunters, and waves. it almost made me sick just watching the little boats bob around, and it was windy and cold, but it was oh so awesome.
next day, we took off for eureka, california and tramped around downtown with the hobos and the raindrops and the los bagels and shopped around as my momma told me. we walked down to the carson mansion, which is this big awesome gawdy amazing victorian house-turned-gentleman's club out on the edge of the bay in old town eureka. i took some photos and then we headed across the three bridges that traverse the mouth of humboldt bay and stopped on woodley island, where i proceeded to take some pcitures of cool boats at dock and the super awesome statue that stands in memorial to those who have lost their lives at sea. a humongous fisherman with a net... i snapped him with the humongous lumber company in the background, not realiizing that it sort of looks cooler than the statue itself. it looks gigantic and evil.. and thus interesting.
one evening, drove just a few miles down the road and ended up at camel rock beach, where we took some more pictures and kept out eyes both on the hot surfers and the sun, which was going to set, seeing as how we wanted to see both an ocean sunset and a full moon from a surfer. stupid wetsuits. stupid clouds. we played around in the sand and waves (ryan found some sea anemones) and i tried not to die on slippery barnacle rocks. it was relaxing, and enjoyable, and really made me miss living in that area. there is nothing better than the pacific northwest. omg so true. we ended up leaving before the sun set because of the clouds in the way and because we didnt want to keep toby and crystal up too late with our return. people with kids go to sleep early!
we woke up early on the day that we headed to newport oregon because it was going to take over seven hours to get there and we wanted to be sure and arrive before the campground closed and we wanted to stop at the *insert drum roll here* trees of mystery, just outside of crescent city california, where everything is named after a tsunami. i had never actually stopped at the trees of mystery before, so i really enjoyed walking the trails and the humongous trees, which never turn out in photos because how the fuck can you capture THAT on film? its impossible. we took the skytrail (a thingy thing that you get in and climb up the mountain, sort of like a ski lift but enclosed) and it was freaky and high and scary, but the view from the top was amazing. they had built a huge deck from which you could see all the way out to the ocean, and, on the other side, into the vast wilderness of the yurok tribe and their redwood experiment-ridden land and condor nests and its always fun being higher than the fog that the trees and mountains produce. the top of the world. i highly recommend stopping if you are ever thereby. i took a picture looking up into this most gigantic of trees, a good 20 feet across? and it came out looking like a normal tree. for shame. the insignia for the trees of mystery is a silhouette of a native american warrior, sitting atop his horse, exhausted or dying or forlorn or cold or wet, you cant really tell, and its just about the the saddest thing ever. i coudlnt afford a statue, so ryan got me a snowglobe with the indian and his horse in front of pretty trees and its full of glitter. that made me feel better. he's not sad that his land and country have been turned into a tourist attraction, he's just tired from dancing at the disco all evening!
the oregon coast consists basically of two things: ocean and pretty. half rain and half sun and all fun, we finally arrived beverly beach state park and acquired the keys to our fabulous yurt. i hereby proclaim that yurts > (tents X infinity). we unloaded our evening's wares and then ran under the bridge to the beach and spent a while ocean-looking. then, as is usual for people that don't have a ton of food in the car, we drove back the few miles to newport and got some dinner, after perusing the oh-so-tiny walmart (travesty). we rushed back to beverly beach to play at the ocean (ryan actually walked out into the waves, but i didnt have shorts and didnt want to freezing wet. i wish i had. we missed the sunset that evening as well because there were too many clouds. :( there were emo kids taking emo pictures. there was a big ancient root, and there were scary tsunami zone signs that were comical yet unnerving. first touch of an earthquake and i was prepared to run for the hills. it is NOT a good idea to watch a show on the learning channel about the cascadia subduction zone and what an earthquake along that fault would do to the northern coasts of the united states. especially when they mentioned in that show very specifically that those that were situated just about where we were sleeping that night, would only have mere minutes to escape before the tsunami struck. yay! i think living at sea level anywhere near an ocean would scare me to death now. stupid internet and its ability to show me what happened in indonesia, etc. in 2004. shut up tyler.
the next morning, we awoke from our peaceful yurt slumber and packed up the car, heading back towards newport to take advantage of the beauty and wonder that is the historic bay district. we went to the beach of beverly one last time and said goodbye to the ocean for the remainder of the trip. i was sad. oceania! *throatsong* once we got down to the oldtimey awesome portion of newport, we parked and walked up and down the street, stopping in shops and buying stuff along the way. a pretty little town, i need to go again methinks. we kept hearing the sea lions barking and roaring, and i just assumed that they were in the newport aquarium or out in the bay, but pretty soon we could tell they were really close because fuck are they loud! we turned the corner and saw that there was a small pier jutting into the water in L shape and that, within the L, the local whoevers had placed some floating platforms below for the sea lions to sun themselves on and scratch themselves to their hearts content. they were practically breaking their necks to get sun on themselves and they kept talking and roaring (who would have thought they could roar like a lion??!) and they were humongous and cute and made my heart happy. we took a lot of pictures and laughed and i wanted to take one home. the best one even had my hairdo. a sea lion with a fauxhawk. he was the best. i turned around on the dock and snapped a picture of the big awesome bridge that stretches across the mouth of the bay, and it was a pretty day. and i saw that all was good.
from newport, we drove ourselves inland, to bring ourselves to the wonderous city of portland, oregon. we got into the city, and arrived at our hotel, the governor hotel, right downtown, which was a joy. the valet took the car and we didnt have to worry about parking or driving after that. we had deliberately gotten a hotel that was downtown and near to powell's bookstore, where we were prepared to spend millions of dollars. i didnt realize how great the location was though, for shopping, and walking and enjoyment. my friend boobie jo drove to portland from vancouver (across the river) and hung out in our hotel with us for a minute or two. we all set out and walked around downtown for quite a while. we got pizza at rocco's and did some preliminary browsing at powell's city of books (!@@!) and then hung out in the room for a little while. i got a che guevara journal and made boobie jo write in it and we admired the pretty view from out hotel window. sixth floor views of downtown prettiness. i took some photos from the window, which actually turned out to be the only photos i took in portland. i am always rather half-assed when it comes to taking pictures. i forget that i have my camera sometimes.
after boobie jo left, we got a call from megan, informing us that she was free from her singing duties. i guess she was on a cross-country singing tour with her college people or something. i am bad at knowing what's going on. ha. ryan and i walked the 8 or 9 blocks to her hotel and rescued her. we walked around for while and ended up back at the governor again, hanging out and yacking. great fun. we then set out in search of food...which was a near-impossible feat at ten at night in downtown portland. i had no idea the whole city goes to sleep at nine.. thats so weird aint it? we found a coffee shop with a muffin or something and sat down for some good talking. it was a cool place and the server was hot, so i enjoyed it. i may mention that every boy i saw in portland was hot. heaven. i was pretty tired because i am old and started to fall asleep at the coffee shop, so we decided to walk megan back to her hotel. i am sure that ryan and megan assumed i was unhappy or uncomfortable, but i was just tired. and i always SEEM uncomfortable, though i am rarely actually so. by the time we reached home, the hotel, i was pretty much beat and fell asleep right quickly.
we spent the next day walking around, most fascinatingly at the portland art museum. i think we spent about four hours there, and that was with me not even taking the time i would have had i not had other things to do with my day. museums can occupy my time to no end. give me 12 hours and a good art museum and all i will ask for is where the bathroom is. lol. they had a little bit out of every genre on earth, and it all rocked. i got to see my first real-life monet too, which was revelatory. seeing one of the many lily painting that exist--seeing it up close-- being there, you really get a sense of how those brushstrokes are very little more than the results of a man's brain translating light onto canvas. it was almost a shame that they placed it in such an abrupt place. up the stairs and bam! right there, no warning, i may not have noticed it right away if ryan had not stated something to the effect of omg monet! he has such better eyes than me. monet. sigh. i even found a painting by robert henri among the numerous paintings and was proud of myself for noticing him. i love his paintings for some reason. some reason besides the fact that they are amazing. everything is amazing. shit. i must go to the boise art museum now. i havent been in years. we were sad that the seattle art museum is closed until next year, so we really enjoyed the portland art museum, knowing that it would be the only one on the trip. we then spent a few hours shopping at powell's. i basically filled up my basket and gave up. i only shopped in one section, and went reverse alphabetically, and had to stop at like... S... because my arms hurt. i had more money to spend, but thought that i was pretty well satisfied. i am lucky i do not live near there. every book on earth. thank you jesus. we spent one more night at the governor and then, after checking out at noon the next day (after an hour spent at everyday music), we headed to seattle and left behind us the beautiful city of porltand, full of awesomeness, great stores, way the hell too many bums, and lots of music stores.
to seattle. i think that ryan and i made a great driving team. him with the wheel and the map in my lap. having one person decipher and one person driving is, i think, ideal when driving in cities bigger than boise. i seemed to remember seattle being really impossible to navigate from my trip there in 2001, but we made out pretty well actually. of course, we stayed downtown most of the time, which helped us to avoid the interstate and exits. when we first showed up in seattle we found our hotel pretty easily. it was the quality inn or something right off of denny and right next to the outlet of the tunnel thing and a few blocks from the space needle. the hotel was kinda skeevy, but only because they were working on it and we were used to the grandeur the governor that we had partaken of the previous two nights. our room had a humongous whirlpool two person bathtub thing right next to the bed! that was heaven. taking baths in big baths is fun to the max. after we checked in and relaxed a bit, we got out of the room and walked around downtown for a bit. bigger buildings than portland, no bums that bothered you, and more hills, but generally the same feeling of big city neato-ness. sure, seattle is no new york city or san francisco, but it's damn big to me. we walked around and turned toward the water and walked downhill like homer and then headed back up to the hotel. the great thing about having a room near the space needle is that you can always find your way there because the needle is visible from anywhere on the end of town. the fact that no tall buildings have been built around it really helps. we didnt really do much that evening because we were nearing broke status and we were going to be there for three nights, so we were in no hurry.
when we woke up the next day, we set off a-walking and a-shopping. i spent a ton of money and ended up with clothes that i needed badly. a zippy, a hoody, a denim jacket, and lots of pants. i found shoes that i wanted as at rochester's big and tall store of awesomeness. i so have to order those! anyways... we had made reservations to eat dinner that night at the restaurant at the top of the space needle, but i had no clothes to wear that didnt look like ass. so i ended up getting some pants at the gap. now, i traveled a long way to seattle and i ended up shopping at a lot of the stores that they have in boise, except in seattle, they are like... three floors of shopping heaven. and abercrombie & fitch had a real live shirtless boy standing in the door greeting people. le sigh. anyways, we ended up in old navy, where i got a shirt that i could wear. mmm...long sleeve brown shirt. sexy. my ensemble was complete. i also bought stuff at urban outfitters, and we went through nordstroms, banana republic, american apparel, etc. i am not much of a shopper, but i really had a great time that day. maybe i dont shop much because i dont have access to totally tubular shopping places!
after returning to the room with our booty-loot, we rested and then headed back out and ended up walking up to the convention center and the shopping stuff up on 6th and partly up the hill to whatever is over i-5 from there. then we headed back so that we could shower and prepare ourselves for dinner at the needle. we showed up all decked out and refreshed from the walk, and they whisked us up the elevator straight to the restaurant. now, the restauran rotates around the needle ever-so-slowly, but you totally notice it. it takes around 45 minutes for it to rotate completely, and we ended up staying for like.. a rotation and a half. the view was so spectacular. the space needle is so spectacular looking anyways. i love it. i took some pictures of the needle at night and the view from within. i had some delicious pork chop things with pancetta hash and sweet potato shreds, and it was good. after dinner, we walked up the stairs to the observation deck directly above us and spent a while looking out over the city. it was windy and freezing and exhilerating. we specifically made our dinner reservation for late so that we would have a great city view. unbelievable. after that, it was crash time. to bed, to dream of lights and wind and, um, jesus?
the next morning, we got up early and headed over to pike street to stroll through the market. i picked a bad route for us to walk down on the way there and i felt a bit scared with the people that we were walking around, but i was probably just being a wuss. i dont think i shall take first street as a normal route again though. though i did like the concrete waves in the underpass...that was cool. the public market at pike place was humongouser than i ever thought it was! after a long time, we finally found the special famous fish-throwing corner and that was fun. we found the pig that everyone fondles too and it was cute. i suck at photography and got a bad picture of ryan on the pig, which made me sad because it would have rocked, but such is life. we couldnt find the bubble gum walls though! but we had fun walking around anyways, and i shot some pictures that were non-horrible. we then had to run back to the hotel so we could check out on time. we had three hours to kill between checkout time for that hotel and checkin time at our other hotel. we whipped out the map and headed up to capitol hill, which i had thought was where carley had taken me one time to a big gay store. we did not find the gay store, but we found a kickass bookstore with gay stuff and mcsweeneys and an edward gorey version of an h.g. wells book that i bought for ryan because he loves the gorey. we also found starbucks for a bathroom and java chip and, joy of joys, the everyday music store, where i forked out a shitload of money for lots of stuff that i love. jane siberry, liza minnelli, cathy dennis (!), and emmylou harris even. i love that store. both of them that we went to were just fantabulous.
after spending three hours in the rain and stores, we headed back downtown and checked in at our final hotel of the trip, the hotel max, which was so very cool. very cool. go there. after some problems with my credit card (oops), we sent the car via the valet and got to our tiny, yet great, room that overlooked the street and was on the 7th floor. we set out to walking around downtown again and ended up walking all the way to the tallest building in town, but i cant remember the name of it. is it the columbia building?? i took pictures of it from a few blocks away near an arch. it was almost dark so they didnt turn out super hot. but we finally made it back to the hotel and i took a picture out the window in which you can see my reflection, but it still looks kinda cool. the hotel was great and the bed was the best bed ever! we went to sleep pretty early so that we could take full advantage of our pre-checkout time the next morning. on the agenda: daylight space needle, and experience music project.
we woke up early and headed for the space needle so we could get in some good daylight views of upper seattle. being up there in the daylight was totally different. you didnt feel as high when you could see the ground really well, but i got some awesome pictures and enjoyed the sun! after that, we spent a few hours at the experience music project, which was really cool. we ran out of time and had to run back to the hotel for checkout, but it was great. lots and lots of jimi hendrix stuff! we didnt get to see the museum of science fiction place, so i shall go next time!
after we checked out of the hotel max, we zoomed on over to pioneer square and spent a few hours taking the underground tour, which is a tour of some of the fuckin creepy underground walkways and sidewalks in the old parts of seattle. the original street level that got buried when they decided to raise the city levels everywhere. hard to explain but creepy as hell and i didnt even get any pictures because i was to busy being fascinated and weirded out. :( when that was done, we had lunch at the elliot bay book company's downstairs cafe (that was actually built using part of their underground) which was really neato. i wanna live there. with that, we headed out of town and towards moscow, idaho.
we spent the night being entertained by some of ryan's friends from the university of idaho and watching the 40-year-old virgin. his friends were super-cool and it was a good way to end the trip. i tried to get a hold of marcus the next day, but i assume he was in class...trips are too hectic! he shall forgive me. we drove down highway 95, passing through whitebird on the way, where i snapped some beautiful pictures of the historic valley and the crazy landscapes. it was a pretty day, and the scenery sloped up from the green rainy grassy to the snowy white hilly all in one swoop.
after travelling back down through mccall, cascade, and horshoebend, we jaunted on over to emmett, where i met like.. all of ryans family members, who were all super nice. then we headed for boise, got to my apartment and collapsed. much like i am going to do right now, after typing this blog/journal for a million hours. i hope you read the whole thing, there will be a quiz afterwards!