#DontGetSaltonWithMe

I spend all day staring at a computer screen for my job, and I've tried to be more intentional with my other blog lately as well--which has totally led to neglecting this blog.

But I'm back! And eventually I'll tell you about my January trip to Dallas, New Years' trip to Vegas, and...yeah. I think that's all the traveling I've done this year, sadly.

First-time travel partner!

Well, I also went to the Salton Sea the weekend before Easter.

My friend Jackie and I were roommates during my junior (her sophomore) year of college. We didn't know each other at all when I found out I'd be living with her. I signed up to live in the ASU downtown dorms two days after the cutoff, and anxiously waited to learn who my roommate would be (praying she wouldn't be absolutely crazy/messy and would somehow be telepathic and know exactly what I was thinking).

As soon as I found out Jackie was my roommate, I Facebook stalked her and found her and messaged her and said "Hey, I think we're going to be roommates!" One thing led to another and BOOM, we were talking about and exchanging links to Vice pieces about the Salton Sea.

It was somewhere we'd both been intrigued by and interested in visiting, and we tossed around the idea of taking a trip. Two and a half years later, we actually did it.

We left Phoenix on a Friday evening and drove to Brawley, California, where we stayed at a hotel that gave us a bar of chocolate and a hand written note thanking us for staying with them. We also walked to a doughnut shop after Jackie asked me "how safe is this city?" and I gave her the crime report statistics because that's actually something I totally looked into before deciding we were staying there for the night.

For the record, Brawley is slightly safer than Phoenix. It just looks kinda sketchy at night when you're walking past an alley way to get to the 24-hour doughnut shop that also sells Conchas next to the Von's grocery store.

A video posted by A M A N D A (@mandalyn93) on Mar 19, 2016 at 10:31am PDT

In the morning we packed up shop and left the hotel. Our first major stop was Salvation Mountain, located in Niland, California.

For starters, I don't know many people* who are willing to leave Phoenix for a trip to California that will involve dead fish, a putrid lake, a beach made of fish bones and a man-made mountain of hay, tires, dirt and latex paint constructed entirely as a testament to God's love...but Jackie is one of those people, and I'm so grateful for that.

*actually, I know a lot of people who would be willing to do this, but they all live in Portland.

Welcome to Salvation Mountain. It's bright and happy, and surrounded by absolutely nothing. When you climb to the top (which you can do) all you can see is dirt, concrete slabs, and the occasional RV occupied by someone who is either ATV-ing for the weekend or trying to escape real life out here, in the desert of California.

I'm stoked we got to see Salvation Mountain for a few reasons. One, a ton of my friends (read: the ones who live in Portland now) have visited multiple times and have always told me to go. Two, my favorite National Geographer photographer and his son frequently visit and photograph the area, which makes me super happy. Three, I love the story of Leonard Knight, the artist who created Salvation Mountain. I'm bummed I'll never be able to meet him, though, as he passed away a few years ago.

I hope my future grandchildren find this someday and think "Damn, my grandma was a badass." 

I didn't find anything particularly noteworthy--just some graffiti, some dirty clothing and an old computer monitor.

Our next stop was about thirty minutes away--Bombay Beach. Jackie pegged the location as "what she thinks of when she thinks of the Salton Sea," and I knew relatively little about it.

When the Salton Sea was first created (by a complete fluke of nature), it flooded a basin in southern California and paved the way for waterfront vacation properties to pop up. Long story short, the sea had no outflow, so the salinity rose and everything died--including the waterfront towns.

Bombay Beach currently has about six square blocks of actual, living residents as well as the rickety bones and sunken foundations of former buildings.

This may have been a crane once upon a time.

We explored the shoreline and saw everything from old, metal school desk chairs scattered in the water off the beach to a camper/trailer completely sunk into sand up to its roof. Had it not been for a crowd of Good Samaritans preparing to tow a car ahead of us, we would have also accidentally driven into some loose gravelly sand and been stuck.

After nearly driving into the quicksand (which it was not, but for story's sake, let's call it that) we decided we'd had enough of the barren beach and wanted shade, rest and lunch.

It was time to head to the campground.

The tent is up! #DontGetSaltonWithMe

A video posted by Jackie Cotton (@jackiebcotton) on Mar 19, 2016 at 2:02pm PDT

When I first told Jackie I wanted to camp, I think she was apprehensive--but she handled it like a pro. If you click the video above, you'll notice we set up the tent in our dresses, because #femalesarestrongashell. We spent the entire afternoon sitting behind her car/in her car/eating salami/reading books/talking about adulthood and what life is like after graduation.

Thank you for always taking my photo, Jackie.

Come sunset, we went down to the beach (which we could see from our campsite) and took a ton of photos. We both enjoy photography and definitely took advantage of the different settings we experienced throughout the day. Also, why else would we have stayed in our dresses? Gotta get those #liveauthentic pics.

After photos, we opened a bottle of wine (if you know us, you know we pretend to be wine connoisseurs) and cooked cans of soup over a nifty propane burner I bought not too long ago!

We soon went to sleep--the sun sucked the life from us that day, and gave me a nice burn too.

I slept like a rock and woke up at 7:30 to Jackie swearing at the yapping birds, calling them "procreating fiends."

Her word choice is one of the reasons she's one of my three closest friends. 

Granted, we'll never know what kind of birds they were--2/3 of the types of birds found in the United States can be found at the Salton Sea, on account of it being one of the only water sources available for miles and miles on the migratory route.

That's the funny thing about the Salton Sea--it's a great irony. A superb juxtaposition. It was never meant to exist. It's a product of an accident that drew life to it, and then quickly began to expel all living things. But through the years of its existence, the sea has become both a life sustainer and a life taker.

The birds wouldn't be able to survive without it, but its salty and toxic nature ultimately takes a few bird lives every year.

There's something beautiful in that deadly juxtaposition, and we got to encounter it on our weekend trip to a very dreary and gorgeous place in southern California.

Look how stinking cute we are! And how sunburned my arm is!

Denver!

Dear me, oh my!

I haven't mentioned that I went to Denver for Thanksgiving!

I blame it on the crazy amount of final projects I had.

Sawyer + Sarah

So, yes. My final trip of 2014 was to Denver, Colorado. It was a short trip--I left Phoenix Wednesday night at 10:40 pm, and arrived back in Phoenix Saturday morning at 9 am. However, the brevity of the trip did not detract from the adventure.

This was my third (fourth?) and final year spending Thanksgiving in a different state than my parents. I initially was going to go to Tucson with them (to stay at the Hotel Congress and watch the ASU vs U of A game) but they stalled in making hotel reservations.

I found out in September that two of my friends, Sarah and Sawyer, would be unable to return to Phoenix for neither Thanksgiving nor Christmas, so I booked a plane ticket to Denver.

Life lesson: Consider checking your savings account before you book a plane ticket on a whim when you're in college. It may take months to recover. Not to say that happened to me.

As the weeks passed and as Thanskgiving drew nearer, I became increasingly excited to leave my homework behind for a while and head out to a new territory.

I've visited Denver once before, but this was my first time flying into Denver and spending time in the southern side, and my first time going in the winter.

It was basically freezing when I arrived. I'm so glad I bought a coat for this trip. When my flight landed, I took a moment to enjoy the art in the Denver airport (there are a lot of conspiracy theories about it) before getting in Sarah and Sawyer's car and going home and to bed.

I slept soundly on the most. comfortable.  air mattress ever. created. As soon as I awoke, we began drinking coffee and cooking food. I made my favorite dish, green bean casserole with fresh green beans. It was heavenly.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner picnic-style and discussed what we are most thankful for this year.

My list included my parents' house, Sarah + Sawyer, my boyfriend Adam, the ability to travel, and my education.

Because we ate so early, we had a full afternoon of time to kill. We sat around. We watched tv. We ate pie. We drank wine. We went shopping at 6 pm on Thanksgiving day.

Yeah, I just said that.

It was my first Black Friday experience, and it wasn't even on Black Friday. It was also incredibly tame--the line to enter Target had dismantled by the time we got there, and there were still piles of large televisions for people to purchase.

I bought two pairs of gloves and that was it.

We went to World of Beer afterwards and enjoyed the potluck there (our second Thanksgiving dinner) and local pumpkin ale. It was a very peaceful, low-key holiday, and I loved it.

Friday was spent crafting and watching the ASU vs U of A game on the air mattress.

Sarah has picked up watercolors as a hobby, and she's really good at it. Like, Etsy-good.

I, on the other hand, created glamorous stockings for Adam and I. They are argyle and metallic and shiny and spectacular.

Unfortunately, I awoke incredibly early Saturday morning to head home to Phoenix. It was a rough early morning, but the sunrise was beautiful from the Southwest gate and the view of snowcapped mountains under my airplane's wing really made for a gorgeous end to my trip.

I arrived back in Phoenix well rested and ready to finish the semester off.

Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco

I've been asked before "How do you travel so much? It seems like as soon as you're back from one trip, you're planning another one."

The answer is prioritization.

Traveling and exploring are high on my priority list, right up there next to breathing, eating and loving people.

That's how I ended up in the Bay Area.

I had a few very important things before I began planning this trip

Marcos, whose extra bed I slept on.

1. A jar of money
2. An offer from a friend (to sleep on his floor "If you ever make it out to the bay area")
3. A desire to travel to the northwest

and, well, the rest is history.

I found myself at the Oakland Airport one morning at the end of June, and spent the following days exploring the Bay Area.


Oakland

I think, for the most part, Oakland has a bad rap. It's really not as terrifying as everyone thinks it is. I mean, we did accidentally drive through east Oakland on the way from the airport to the house, but we survived. It was fine.

My favorite part of Oakland was the people. It was my home base for the five (six?) days I stayed there. Much of what I did in the Bay Area, I did alone, but I got to spend a few evenings with Marcos, Adam, Jess and Chris and they were spectacular. These times were spent outside, with fire and pipe tobacco and craft beers, which, in my opinion, is the best way to spend time with people. Not to mention Jess picked me up from the airport when I arrived and took me to the train station when I left.

Adam, Chris, Jess. Sweet people.

The walkability (which I also found in Berkeley) of Oakland was pretty sweet, too. It was an easy jaunt from the house to Telegraph, where I was shown a really cool store (East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse) that sells pretty much any and every odd, end or craft supply you will ever want or need. I bought a box of old photographs, a Beanie Baby trading card (Nannook is my homie) as well as an ancient DC Talk and more recent Jack Jonhnson CD. The grand total was less than $2. Easily the coolest store I have ever seen.

Other things I enjoyed about Oakland:

• Hidden alleys with coffee shops and succulents (I'm looking at you, Temescal Alley)
• Organic ice cream in flavors like geranium, allspice and rooibos (Tara's is taaaasty)
• AC Transit! I got to use a public transit bus system for the third time in my life

Berkeley

The Berk was cool. I had a really difficult time not calling it "Beserkeley" in keeping with The Princess Diaries. The first day I ventured into Berkeley, I took AC Transit from Oakland (read: North Oakland) and underestimated how long it would take to get to my stop. Once at my stop, I didn't know how to request for the bus to stop. So I ended up waiting two more stops and then had to walk half a mile or so to the UC Berkeley Art Museum.

The museum architecture is stellar.

No matter, though! I got to wade through crowds of (what were presumably) incoming freshmen and prospective students walking around with their parents! I laughed inwardly at the young'uns who have no idea what college is about to be, and pushed on toward the museum.

Once I arrived, I sat, wrote, read a book outside, sketched and then finally went inside.

Nothing about this trip was rushed, which I enjoyed. I got to sit and do whatever the heck I wanted.

Inside, there were a few really sweet gallery exhibits. Long story short, one was about color (intriguing. Very intriguing. Made my eyes happy) and the other was by a Texan artist named Forrest Bess. His art was very surreal, his story was very...strange. Look him up.

My second jaunt into Berkeley was a little more well organized. One of Marcos' co-workers drove us in so we could get lunch before he had to go in to work, and we hit up a delicious Mexican restaurant. It definitely wasn't street food, it was heavy-cheesy-bean-and-corn Mexican food, but man. I had the chilaquiles and they were good. Afterwards, we went to Savers and I got two shirts that walked out of the '80s or early, early '90s. They look really good on me (IMHO), but I still have to cut the shoulder pads out. My mom is going to hate them.

Post-Savers, we walked the mile-or-so to Artís Coffee, which is in the swanky part of Berkeley. (Right? Who knew Berkeley had a swanky side? It's like Scottsdale, but really close to water!) Marcos went to work behind the bar (he does coffee things. I think it's cool.) and I went to virtual work behind my laptop for a few hours for my internship. After that, I tackled the AC Transit system and took a bus home.

San Francisco

I didn't know it when I booked my ticket to go to the Bay Area, but I was visiting during Pride. Which was cool and all, but I don't. like. crowds.

That made enjoying San Francisco a little difficult.

I like the acoustics of stations.

Taking the BART from Oakland to San Francisco was also a little difficult. I overshot the BART station by a few blocks (which is a lot on foot) because Google Maps told me to turn left on 39th street, when in reality it was 40th street. Whatever, Google Maps. Whatever.

When I finally got into the city, I got to do a few cool things. I visited Four Barrel Coffee and had the La Cabaña pourover (the slow bar barista couldn't talk about anything else--I guess that's called passion?) and sat and wrote, read, and shot photos for a while. I actually had someone approach me and ask if she could take my photo because "Photographers rarely have their photo taken."

I was pretty stoked about that. Of course I said yes.

Afterwards, I stopped by a little empanada shop I passed on my way to Four Barrel and ate (an empanada, duh) and watched the World Cup. Because why not. It was delicious, too.

That same day, I went down to the Embarcadero and saw the piers. I read somewhere online (Yelp, maybe) that Pier 14 was a beautiful place to see the city from. While I found Pier 13 and Pier 15, I didn't exactly find Pier 14. I did find the Exploritorium and a really sweet view from where Pier 14 should be, though, so I'm calling it good. Ultimately, I would have liked to see the view at night, but I didn't really like the walk from the BART station to the house, so I tried to keep my exploring to daylight hours.

Cue that Journey song. Lights.

My second trip into San Francisco was on very short notice. It was Sunday, when Pride was in full swing, but I had two really sweet (free) tickets to see La Traviata at the San Francisco Opera (thank you, Alex, you're amazing). The catch was that I wouldn't know if I had the tickets until one hour before the show started. Adam (Marcos' friend) and I, clothed in more fabric than the majority of San Francisco (Pride dresses you down. We were dressed up.), braved the massive crowds and made it to the opera in time to be seated during the first intermission. That's right, it took us an hour and a half (give or take a little while) to get from Oakland to the opera.

The opera itself was rather wonderful, and I'm happy to say I've now witnessed San Francisco Pride. But I honestly never want to witness it again.

The best part of that second trip into San Fran was probably taking the BART back into Oakland and getting dinner with Alex and Adam. We ate some sort of amazing ethnic food. I'm not sure what it was but I've never been so excited to eat with my hands before in my life.

I want to eat this again.

I know, I probably don't sound too enthusiastic about San Francisco. I'll give the city another shot. Next time I visit, it will NOT be during Pride. I will also have a bike with me, and a better idea of how to ride the BART. Let's just say these two days in the city were a trial run. There will be another trip there.

Other Cool Things

I spent a lot of my time writing and reading. A LOT. It was really nice to kick back and be introspective for a while. I finished reading Prodigal God by Timothy Keller and started reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. When I started reading it, I had no idea AHWOSG was set in the areas I was exploring, so it added an ethereal sense to the novel. It was like I was able to understand the setting in the novel in a brand-new way. Rather than imagining the mountains north of Berkeley, I was able to picture them as they were.

I walked. A lot. I have been walking a lot in Portland, too. I really enjoy walking as a means of transportation, and truly wish I could walk more in Phoenix, but it's just too dang hot outside.

I also did a nifty little photojournalism project. I shot a photo of everyone I met on my way to/in/leaving the Bay Area. Adventuring on my own made me more susceptible (disregard any negative connotations that word may have, I was perfectly safe the whole time) to talking to strangers, and I actually did stop and talk to quite a few. At the end of our conversation (starting with the man at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport [which I am never flying out of, ever again]) I requested to take a photo of everyone I spoke to. And so I did. I'm really excited to get that roll of film developed. Update: Photos available here!

In summary, I really enjoyed the Bay Area portion of my trip because it was a little difficult and a little lonely. As an extrovert who is also an only child, I really enjoy actively being around people, but I also really like doing things on my own, by myself, for myself, and that's pretty much what this portion of the trip was all about. It was great!

And now... I am in Portland, enjoying my time here.

Click here to read about Portland.