#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!

That September "Family" Road Trip

Ok, it's now the final week of 2015 so I'm finishing and posting this bleeping blog post.

I'm now a college graduate.
Let that sink in.

Even more, I have a job--but more on that later.

The adventure that started it all took place more than four years ago, and I'm ready to embark on a new adventure: the work world.

So before all that happens, my parents and I decided to go on one final hoorah--a three week family vacation.

Only, the three week vacation turned in to a two week vacation after I fell and broke my knee. The Industrial Commission only allows Workers Comp recipients to leave the state for 14 days max, and since I broke my knee while I was on the clock...the vacation got cut short.

Which was ultimately okay.

The vacation also didn't end up being a family vacation because my mom got sick the morning she and I were supposed to leave for Las Vegas.

This vacation was also, like, two months ago.*

Mom's sick face.

So, when Mom realized she wasn't going to make it from Phoenix to Vegas to Sacramento, we enlisted my (now ex) boyfriend to help me drive to Vegas and Sacramento. So at 6 pm (way later than intended) Joel and I said goodbye to Phoenix and hello to the road.

We made it to Vegas at 11:30 pm, promptly dropped our bags off at the hotel room, and hit the strip--because there's no better time to see the Las Vegas strip than at midnight.

We slept in incredibly late, explored the strip during the day, went out for coffee and sushi and record shopping with a friend from camp who lives in Vegas, and went to bed relatively early that night with Mike's Hard Lemonade and HGTV because Vegas bars are gross and expensive.

Surprisingly, Vegas has cool architecture.

The following morning we ate breakfast burritos (and said farewell to Mexican food for the next few days, because the Pacific North West doesn't really have Mexican food) and headed out on the road.

We stopped a lot. This is the first road trip I've been on where we frequently stopped along the side of the road, because Joel is a photographer and loves capturing things on the side of the road, and I really enjoyed it. We got to explore an old abandoned road-side store as well as something called South Tufa at Mono Lake.

There were a ton of tall rock pillars that looked very supernatural. Unfortunately, we didn't get to explore them very much because we were a) hungry, and b) trying to get to Sacramento by that night. But they were gorgeous, and somewhere I really want to visit again.

Abandoned

Mono Lake

Our route went through Nevada into California, which meant we got to drive on the CA 120. It was gorgeous--we drove up and through the mountains, and I got to see an amazing alpenglow during sunset.

The goal, however, was to be in Sacramento by 9 pm to pick dad up from his flight. We ended up being at the airport a little closer to 10, but dad was fine with it. We were on an adventure, after all.

After picking him up from the airport, we went and checked in at the Delta King, an old riverboat converted into a floating hotel. The staff was alright. Not incredibly helpful or accommodating, but we were a few hours later than we expected to be. Ultimately, we got our room and got to sleep.

Dad!

Our reservations with the Delta King included breakfast (hallelujah) and we appreciated that very much. The meal was served in the restaurant, which overlooked the river.

This happened in September, and I'm now picking this post back up in the end of December* so I'm just going to summarize the rest of this.

We took my (ex) boyfriend to the airport that day, and then met with one of my former professors (who is also the former editor of the Sacramento Bee and an all around great person) for lunch, and caught up on life.

We stayed one more night in Sacramento, then we headed north to Portland, stopping in Redding, Calif. so I could visit my friends Heidi and Shane (whom I met in Eva's wedding) and my friend Sarah from camp.

In Portland, dad and I just chilled a lot. It was almost overwhelming, the whole being in Portland thing. Initially, mom was supposed to join us and I had planned that she and dad were going to spend time together reading or whatever, and I was going to go explore Portland more, but since mom didn't come, Dad and I spent a lot of time together, which was great, but I felt kind of bad leaving him alone to go hang out with friends a bit.

But that doesn't mean I left him alone all the time. We went out for dinner with my friends Andie and Liz one night, and checked out Olympic Provision co. We ate meats and cheeses and olives and goodies like that, and it was lovely.

I also saw Brenna a lot, who was her usual sassy self, and Rhea. It was so so good to see Rhea and her little baby Lucy (who is now a year old.)

The Redwoods are huuuuge and I'd like to live in the forest.

After lunch with Rhea on the last day in Portland, dad and I headed to Tillamook and then coasted down the coast. We saw redwoods, we saw ocean, we drove and we drove and we drove.

Battery Spencer, we shall meet again.

We tried really hard to see the Golden Gate Bridge, but the fog was horrendous from Battery Spencer for the most part. When we drove over the bridge, I got to see some of it, but I also got to explore the creepy and freaky and abandoned Battery Spencer, which was rad.

And at some point after seeing the Bixby Bridge, we decided we didn't want to see anymore sights. We were driving alongside the ocean as the sun was setting, and realized that we wouldn't see any more ocean until the sun rose the next morning. We'd had enough ocean. We wanted to go home, to the desert and to see mom, so we drove through the night and ended up in Phoenix right after sunrise and surprised mom and ended our road trip in the same speedy haze it began.

My dad is probably my favorite person to travel with.

I think I had a hard time writing about this because it's a difficult time to look back on. I'm not in the relationship that kicked off the start of the trip, I was still recovering from a broken knee, and my mom was unable to join us on what was supossed to be a family vacation. The trip itself didn't go as planned, and it was absolutely amazing to spend time with dad, but the trip is still a lot to process. I still haven't gone through all the digital photos from it, and I still have a roll of undeveloped film. I also feel like this was my last large Portland adventure for a while. The city just felt...fake. I remember getting doughntus at Pip's and seeing potted cacti and cliche-cute western decor everywhere and wanting to vomit. Tiny cacti don't belong in Portland, they belong in Phoenix--and so do I.

Upcoming Adventures

Long time, no talk! I haven't blogged in more than a month.

If you haven't heard, I'm spending the whole summer adventuring in Prescott, Arizona. I'm working at the summer camp I attended as a child (United Christian Youth Camp, which is full of beautiful outdoors.) My job is to help kids climb a giant rock face at Watson Lake, and I enjoy it quite a bit.

Climbing, rappelling; day in, day out. It's a great life.

But this is my entire summer. I've been able to take day trips to Bartlett Lake and Flagstaff, and eat a few donuts, but I haven't gone many other places or done many other things.

However, that doesn't mean I'm going to sit around as soon as the summer is over. I have plans to go to Ecuador (yeah, you read that right), Texas and Canada.

UCYC is taking a group of summer and full time staff members to Ecuador to build a sustainable farm and share the love of Jesus. The trip itself is about $2000 dollars, and I am starting to fundraise for it (which is rough. But, hey, God will provide, right?)

In fact, you should check out my gofundme and give me a few dollars. Please. Pretty pretty please.

After Ecuador, I'll be going to Texas to visit my friend Natalie in Austin and help Hannah move back from Dallas when her internship ends. I'm really stoked for that trip because Hannah's mom paid for my airfare to get out there, and I'm going to get to ride an Amtrak from Austin to Dallas. And we all know I love Amtrak.

A gorgeous alpenglow shot during sunrise last time I was on an Amtrak.

Despues de Texas, I'll be taking a three week long road trip with my parents. We're starting to plan it out, and it will include Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and Vancouver BC. The outsetting trip will be me and my mom, and then my dad will fly to join us, and then my mom will fly home and my dad and I will drive back (visiting as many national parks as we can on the way).

To be honest, I'm a little skeptical as to if my parents are actually up for the trip, as they haven't started making reservations for hotels or anything, but I'm hoping they jump to that and do it. Because I'm ready to finally make it to Canada, and take a stop in the Bay Area, and see all my beautiful Portlandites, and visit Yosemite.

But we'll see where this all goes!

Calischmorina || I'm done with college.

I'm freeeeeee

I celebrated the end of my senior year of college by driving to California by myself to visit Mitch and Jess. The trip was borderline not-going-to happen, but I decided to go after my depth reporting professor told me my story on immigration patterns in Nicaragua was at a great next-to-final-draft stage, and that I would only have minor edits to do.

hallelujah for finishing that on time

As soon as I got the email from my professor, I texted Jess and Mitch and told them it was a go. That was Thursday, and I left Phoenix the following Saturday.

It was the first time I'd ever driven to California by myself, but it was great. I spent time listening to podcasts and music, and stopped to take ridiculously great photos of myself like the one above.

When I finally arrived at Mitch's house (the traffic in Azusa and Pasadena was horrendous) I quickly set up my laptop and realized I had a paper due in my photography class the day I would return to Phoenix. (Spoiler: I didn't write the paper until the night before it was due.)

Mitch and I hung out, caught up, and just enjoyed seeing each other. He moved back to California from Phoenix in October or November, after getting a really sweet job in television production.

Saturday was spent hanging out with his parents at Taste of the Town, a local food and wine event to benefit charity. The best food there was tri-tip barbecue and these ridiculously delicious chocolate covered strawberries and sugar cookies. And cold brew coffee. And cupcakes. And other delicious sweets that I ate W A  Y  too much of.

It was also really sunny that afternoon and I got ridiculously burnt, but I loved spending time with Mitch's mom and dad; they're an absolute riot. My family isn't particularly good at back-and-forth banter, but his parents are, and I really enjoy that I can make humorous, sarcastic, funny comments with them without offending anyone.

Monday was spent at Disneyland and California Adventures, which was the original intent of this trip. Mitch told me he wanted to take me to Disneyland before I graduated, so I made it happen by wrapping up all of my homework before I left.

We started the day off in Disneyland and hit up all of the necessary rides (Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean) and made dinner reservations for the Blue Bayou.

At that point, we hopped over to California Adventures and ate at Carthay Circle, a historic and delicious restaurant I was unaware existed. We had deep fried cheese-filled biscuits. It was awesome.

My favorite part of Disneyland was, by far, visiting Cars Land.

this ride is my dream. CARS LAND IS MY DREAM.

Here's a fact about me: I'm a Cars fanatic. It is, without a doubt, my favorite Diseny-Pixar film. I love the soundtrack, the plot, the characters, the colors, the lights, everything. I love everything about that movie, and being able to ride Radiator Springs Racers (complete with ANIMATRONIC CARS CHARACTERS. I GOT TO SEE MATER AND LIGHTNING MCQUEEN) was a dream come true.

That's the magic of Disneyland--your wildest imaginations can come true.

And, of course, the second best part of visiting Disneyland was visiting with Mitch. He's one of my best friends, and he knows so much about the park (and a lot of park employees). It was a great experience with him--also because we both agreed that riding the train around Disneyland for 45 minutes was a good idea when we were 210% exhausted.

Disneyland closed at 7:30 that Monday night, and California Adventures closed at 9--right after we got off Radiator Springs Racers for the second time that day.

But the early closing times were alright, because Mitch had to catch a flight the next morning, and I had plans to meet Jess at her coffee shop in the morning as well.

I surprised Jess when I walked into Holy Grounds. She greeted me as a customer, then realized .5 seconds later that it was me. Before long, we were on our way to the Grand Central Market for lunch.

We got giant burritos.

I hadn't been to the Grand Central Market in 8 years, which was the first time I was in LA. I actually attribute my love of cities to that 2007 trip; maybe I'll write a post about it sometime.

Jess had never been there (or at least didn't know how to get there) so we let her sister Sara lead the way. After walking through the glorious city, we arrived and it was just as I remembered. Crowded, delicious looking, and very urban. The Grand Central Market is something I dream for Phoenix to have someday (and I think the new DeSoto Central Market is the closest thing we've got.)

After scoping the place out, we found a burrito place and each got giant burritos. We sat outside, in the breezy weather, and ate our burritos. It was amazing. It was also, coincidentally, Cinco de Mayo.

Purely coincidental.

After the market we visited The Last Bookstore. If you haven't been there/heard of it, I highly suggest you check it out. It's like the Powell's of LA, only smaller and less industrial looking inside. It's like Powell's and Bookman's got together and had a baby.

I bought two David Sedaris books (he's one of my favorites, partially because I had to write a long paper about him during my senior year of high school) and we decided to go to Starbucks/Glendale Galleria (a mall where famous people hang out) and read.

We stopped and bought really fancy chocolate because coffee and nice chocolate on a cloudy day with a good book is a great way to celebrate time with friends.

We also played a really great game called try-to-guess-the-famous-person, and in one instance, it went like this:

There was a guy with red pants who walked past us with a camera slung over his shoulder.

We all stared at him, figured he wasn't famous (but was handsome) and continued staring.

He stared right back and continued walking.

Ten minutes later, he came back, introduced himself, and asked Jess if he could take her photo because he liked her sundress and sun hat and book.

We died laughing because we had been talking about him, and now here he was--taking Jess' photo! Like she was famous or something!

That was the most LA thing to happen to us while we were at Glendale Galleria. We didn't see anyone we absolutely knew was famous, but we saw pretty people being pretty.

And there were a lot of man buns, which is my personal favorite.

Our calm afternoon turned crazy when we hit up the rock gym.

Jess is a devoted member, and is very good at it.

And by "very good" I mean much better than me.

I saw her climb walls I probably wouldn't be able to climb anytime within the next few months, no matter how much I trained.

She's been at this for a while, and is really good at what she does.

I, on the other hand, fell ~10ish feet from a 12 foot wall with no ropes.

Relax, there was a mat to catch me.

But when I got up, I reflexively started crying because that's what your body does when it thinks it had a near-death experience.

I redeemed myself by climbing a different 12-foot path without ropes.

It was such a good workout; I was sore for at least 4 days afterwards. I think I may get a rock gym membership when I get a job after camp this summer, because my parents live very close to a rock gym, and I like the sort of full-body exercise you achieve from rock climbing.

After we tired of that (after I couldn't climb or stand any longer) we went on an adventure searching for chips and guacamole and headed home where Jess and Sara went to bed and where I wrote a three page paper on an amazing photographer named Kevin Russ.

There are far worse topics I could have written on.

I eventually went to bed and woke up the next morning to Maroussi, Jess' dog, in bed with us.

Jess warned me that Maroussi was super cuddly in the mornings, but I didn't know that meant he liked spooning and pawing and kissing whoever was in bed. During one of the pup's wiggle and cuddle sessions, I took a very solid paw to the face and laughed it off. Soon after, we all got dressed, loaded the car, and headed back to Phoenix--with Jess and Sara in tow, of course, because Jess wanted to visit Phoenix and for goodness' sakes, driving alone is nowhere near as fun as driving with another person.

Stay tuned for post-college adventures, like living in a different city for three months!

What next?!

I forget where I was or who I was talking to, but somebody asked me what my next big adventure is.

Well, let me tell you: It involves living in northern Arizona for three months.

I'm going to be a CAMP COUNSELOR! Or, something like that. I could also end up doing photo/video for the camp, but counselor is a close enough description.

When I applied for an internship with the Associated Press in January, I also applied for a position at United Christian Youth Camp--where I went basically every summer between fourth and eighth grade.

This was probably fourth or fifth grade. Can you find me?

I've wanted to be a summer staff member there since I was in eighth grade (maybe even before then) but it hasn't worked out until this summer.

And, so, that's my next adventure! I'll be moving to Prescott in about a month, and will remain there until the beginning of August.

While I'm there, I hope to:

• Do some outdoorsy stuff (kayaking, biking, swimming, etc?)
• Be the cliché camp counselor with a ukulele, yoyo, fanny pack and cowgirl hat
• Take photos/video for UCYC promo material (and to make this look good on a journalistic resume)
• Complete an online history of photography class so I can officially graduate in May

Before then, I'll also (hopefully) be taking a quick trip to California to go to Disneyland with my friend Mitch and to climb some rocks and eat crepes with my friend Jess (who moved back to California after I helped move her back to Arizona...)

And after camp, I'm going to help move my friend Hannah back from Dallas and visit my friend Natalie in Austin while I'm in Texas.

Later, I'm road tripping with my parents.

As you can see, I've got a lot of adventures planned for the rest of the year :) It's really never a boring moment in my life, so brace yourselves for a summer of adventure with me!

Cali: Take 2

I can hardly believe it was only two nights ago when I was loading Jess and Dave's bags into the back of my car for my second weekend in California. I can confidently say, though, that it will be the first and last time I ever do an overnight road trip. Leaving Phoenix at midnight was brutal, but it was what we needed to do to make it in time. Not only did we make it in time, but we also made great time, and got to see a nice sunrise when we arrived at Jess' dad's house in California.

The mountain behind the house gave us a great viewing spot.

After our sunrise hike, we headed out to Venice Beach where I completely zonked out on a beach towel for an hour or so (I only slept an hour and a half on the car ride) and only got lightly sunburned. I think Dave used the term "splotchy." By the time I woke up, everyone else was disenchanted with the beach (which is a sentiment I completely do not understand) and wanted to sleep. All I wanted was coffee.

The crew.

Everyone was a good sport when we piled back into the car and I drove to Intelligentsia on Abbott Kinney. Intelligentisa is the first third wave coffee shop I ever learned about, so it was really nice to pay a visit and drink a cold brew.

Once we got home, we all rested, ate lunch, watched a movie and then headed out for second lunch. Because apparently we're a bunch of Hobbits who like to eat multiple meals.

Jess stayed home but we (it was her sister Sarah's birthday weekend, too, and her friends spent the whole time hanging out with us as well) drove into downtown Los Angeles to eat at Syrup, a coffee/breakfast cafe.

I was really hoping it was an old school soda fountain, but I was completely and pleasantly surprised when I saw it was a coffee shop similar to Samba Latte and Caffe Medici, narrow with multiple stories. I had a crepe that rivaled Jobot's, and we all played Jenga and enjoyed the air conditioning.

Bendix building. I have no clue what it is.

With time to kill and food to walk off, we jaunted down to the fashion district on a hunt for gym shorts and a suit for Dave. All we really found were overpriced USB drives and gangsta' basketball shorts. And a lot of fabric. And a lot of crowds. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but the old buildings, populated alleyways and general skyscrapers pleased my eye.

Once we returned home, I did homework and napped a sweet, sweet nap, bringing the total amount of time I slept up to approximately four hours.

Our evening was spent preparing to see Rocky Horror Picture Show for Sarah's sweet 16th. The show started at midnight (a short 24 hours after we first left Phoenix) and the movie didn't actually start until 1 am, leaving us leaving the theater at 2:45 am.

I fell asleep as soon as I got home (and washed the red lipstick off my face--apparently it's normal to draw on people who are seeing the show for the first time) and then woke up at 10 am this morning, a short hour before we planned on leaving to return to Phoenix.

Oh, right. The other point of this trip was to move Jess home to Phoenix. It took a grand total of twenty minutes to load all her stuff in my car, and she did most if it while I was still asleep this morning.

Los Angeles, I love you so.

And so, we left after a fun/amazing/crammed/spectacular weekend in Los Angeles, and returned to Phoenix with a rat, a bike and a few boxes of other things Jess owns. And a lot of stinking great photos on my phone.

I honestly feel like I've done more living in the past 48 hours than I did from Monday through Friday, which makes me wonder how much living I'll be doing in Portland over fall break. Now, excuse me as I go take my laundry out of the dryer and finish packing. I leave again in three days.

Cali: Take 1

I'm back from the first of two back-to-back weekends in California. I've been back since Sunday, and I'm heading out late tomorrow night for my next adventure.

Last weekend I went to Santa Clarita or Valencia or somewhere in that region for free with my friend Mitch, because he's a great person and knows I love travel.

He also knows I'm a dependable person who enjoys offering a helping hand, which is what I did. This was a volunteering trip, although it didn't feel like much work to me!

My weekend was spent brushing elbows with influential TV set designers and movie producers and head animators and all sorts of people I'd probably never meet otherwise.

Me+my camera+ocean

I helped out with the grunt work associated with a Disney art and wine auction, where the proceeds will go to scholarships for CalARTS students. Let me just say, it was a blast, but it felt SO weird being surrounded by so many "influential" people.

I'm really comfortable bumming around in my Birkenstocks, and while I enjoyed getting super dressy and seeing a Salvador Dali print, I was much more comfortable when I got to go to the beach the next day with Mitch and his family.

Who, by the way, are incredibly nice people. I love his parents. They're so witty. And generous.

So, yeah. That was weekend one. Art+famous people+beach. Now, weekend two!

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.