#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!

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!

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!