Bridge Shot

And Alcatraz



Well the line was long so I didn't go on the boat, I just assumed this was Alcatraz.

Coldest winter I ever spent

was some winter in New York - San Frans weather is great.

I messed up my exit crossing the bridge so I decided to cancel walking across it (sorry one of those guide books I read, I let you down)

All my electronics are dying - I thought this library would have outlets available but not that I can see yet. I'll try to find one and charge my camera. I'm afraid to touch it because it said I had 25 minutes left, then dropped to 10 when I checked 5 mins later.

Does anyone know what it means when they say speed limit is enforced by radar? They still need a cop to use the radar right? (I hope so) [Also in the Redwood area there were signs "traffic rules enforced by aircraft" At first I thought it was a joke sign that someone put up to mock all the "enforced by radar" signs. But then I saw like 40 of them and thought its probably an offical sign (or someone is really committed to the joke, which I would applaud) It even has a picture of an airplane on it. I didnt get a photo of it but take a look next time your around.]

Route 1 is intense, very windy speed limits 50 (or something) but I didn't do much over 30 most of the way because of the tight turns. I don't think I've ever been passed by so many people in my life. They have little "turn off" areas so people can pass you. I just go into them every time and assume someone will come up and pass me now.

Back tracking - Redwoods

I'm going to try to get a good mix of redwoods stuff but here is the drive through tree


I almost missed the sign for it. It's a little off the beaten path, but its pretty fun.

The real thing to hit up is Avenue of the giants - its an alternate route off 101, but it leads right from and back to 101 so I didn't have to go out of your way at all. I ended up camping off of there, pretty ridiculous.



Off to camp now - well off to find somewhere to camp. Then San Fran in the morning I think.

Oh I forgot

This is totally where Goonies was shot. I mean there wasn't an official "Oregon Historic Marker", but its got to be right?

Mouth: (Concentrating) ....No pen...no sign.... dont sign it!!Don't sign it!!

Mouth grabs contract away from Father.

Father: I'm not going to sign today (rips up contract) or ever again!

(or something like that)

Backtracking - Oregon Coast

I hit the coast pretty early in the morning and rolled on. I really wanted to check out the so called "dunes" so I decided to camp near some. I imagined it would go: woods, 10 ft of sand, then ocean.
But what really happens is



Just to be clear, that's: woods, crap load of dunes, then ocean which you can barely see.

I explored a little, I took some video of the off road people, but its all over the place. Tent held up ok though. It rained off and on all night and I didn't get soaked! Packing up the tent in the rain was terrible though. Oh and it was freezing at night. Mer - you were right I should have taken another sweatshirt. I went and bought one.

Also, this is just my words of advice (take it or please feel free to leave it), if you take a shower when its cold out, make sure you have a towel. Damp hair is one thing, damp body was brutal. And as an added bonus if i turned up the heat in the car the windows fogged up HOOOLLLLA!!!

(I forgot to mention before: Fun fact: Did you know that "rear defroster" is considered an option on cars, like heated seats or cruise control? At least on this rental car its an option, an option I apparently don't have.)

Backtracking - Portland

Portland was ok - I think I need someone to show me around because everywhere I was, was empty. I was in the "downtown" section and I was pretty much the only person there. They had a sweet little park though
I like this. it said "In the shadow of the elm" Reminded me of "Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?"

I got whicked lost in the suburbs - dont even know how I ended up in the burbs - but I found a nice park. Randomly there was a Native Indian drum ceremony going on - I got some audio of it, I have to find where I put it.
But I trecked through the park and found a message board type thing - something to tack up posters to. And at the bottom was:




Cracked me up for some reason, like I couldn't stop laughing.





Then I got tired of waiting around and drove out of the city and slept in a Barnes and Noble parking lot - very cold there, would not advise.

Journey Begins- orgeon

I saw a library off the highway (more accurately I saw a sign for a library) but it wasn't open for another hour so I moved along and saw an actual library and they even have wireless (although it was pretty funny the librarian had to enter the password at my laptop - I guess alot of people are stealing wireless from the Port of Prince Library. Apparently I'm breaking the rules by being in the magazine section (read comfy chairs), but the librarian is going to let me slide becuase I'm "neat and have all my cords tucked away".

I forgot my cords in the car so no video or pics (im also charging my camara as we speak - bounus!).

Starting out the journey on a bad note - forgot the bathroom kit at Mers. I realized about an hour into the trip, maybe less. I could have gone back but figure it be easy to pick up toothbrush and stuff on the road. But I forgot thats where I put the liter and matches, so first night of camping no fire. Could have been worse, just got into the sleeping bag early.

But I'm headed for the redwoods now and I think its about 2 hours away so I want to try to get there this afternoon so I can really see them, probably spend then night and check them out again the next day. I have to hit the trees of mystery and something like founders grove or something like that - suppose to be wicked old trees, and I mean wicked. I'll try to get pictures and stuff up at some point.

Oh but the quote of the Oregon goes to the man at the Chevron station who pumped my gas. I mentioned I was vacationing from the east coast:
Gas Station guy:"Well you know you're on the good coast right?"
Me: (fake laugh) "Yeah I heard..."
Gas Station guy: "You're coast has planes flying into building and stuff"

I'm gonna go ahead and say too soon on that.

I Wanna Thank You, Whoever You Are

I am such a driver of cars its ridiculous.

This is the whip I'll be rolling with for the next 2 weeks.
I asked them for the flashiest car they had on the lot.
I don't think they held back.



In case you were wondering, yeah its a Yaris






Now all I have to do is figure out how to Ghost Ride it.

SAM

I'm taking it to the next level here.

Minor Heart Attach

So just as a head ups for everyone out there - Enterprise doesn't "do" out of state licenses or one way travel in their rental cars. I had been assuming I would use them because there is a store front like 10 blocks from Mer's house.

So yeah I panicked a little, but the sales man told me that Budget and Alamo (never heard of Alamo before) do one way travel. I checked them out and their prices seems kind of high. Luckily, it turns, out almost every other car rental place is fine with one way travel.

I went price hunting and the big winner is Hetz. The guy on the phone said they didn't mind out of state licenses either!


I always knew O.J. knew what was up

Times all off

I think the biggest thing that I would have to get used to on the West side would be the timing of things. Mainly TV things, but I'm sure other things too.

Like tonight, we ate dinner, cleaned up (its around 6:30pm) and one of the basketball games was already over. Now its 10pm and the last game is pretty much over, its a little weird.

But I guess live is live, cant do much about it. What would really be killer is if I somehow stumbled across a spoiler of a tv show I hadn't see yet. Por exhemplo, if Lost was new tonight, people on the East coast would see it at 6:00 pm West coast time. Which means there would be three hours to blog away about it. So what if I wanted to make sure I was up to date on all my facts and checked lostpedia and someone already added new information. I'd be screwed is what if.

Seattle Public Library

Seattle got the hook up with a new library (I actually have no idea if its new, but it looks clean therefore I label it new). Some dude designed it.


I couldn't take a good picture of it so I downloaded this one - my camera (non video) isn't good enough to get the whole thing in one shot. Also, I didn't try any fancy camera tricks like "moving further away"




But I was able to make a sick video. Mark - I've added a little more to this one so I hope it doesn't disappoint you like that last one.



I have a video of the my niepheces (trying out a non gender specific term for them so I dont have to write both words out - I mean I've got things to do. Like figure out where that song I just downloaded was stored, important things.) but they are in the tub so I dont think I can publish it here, I might break the video agreement.

Tenting it up

Went to REI with Mer and got a tent, $99. The salesman was talking up the big dome model for at $269 and he pretty much had me sold until he walked away - I no longer had to stare into his memorizing patchwork beard. I'm pretty sure this is how Freud hyptnotised people, not a pocketwatch.

So now I just need to practice setting it up, should be no thang
(I wrote "shoudl be a piece of cake" but I think "cake" in that instance would elude to "cake walks" in which slaves were given pieces of cake if the danced well for their owners. Does anyone know if this is true, or if I just made it up somehow between facts. I think, to be safe, I might just eliminate cake from my vocabularly - fortunately I prefer pie.)

Now I just need to figure out the whole driving part of the trip. Oh and Mer found out about this. So now I have one thing on my to do list.

Jurassic Test

Downtown

So I took a little bus expedition to downtown - got a little lost but was able to follow the space needle through the sky line. Its a crazy little park there with the EMP (I passed on it - I figure once you go to a museum its the exact same experience everytime), Key Arena and a cool fountain.

I realized tonight that I only took video of the fountain so I can't pass along its splendor at this current juncture. (I'll figure out the video function on my camera at some point)

But what I am also realizing now is that I probably looked pretty creepy at the fountain: single male, with a video camera, near a water fountain mainly filled with small children, and the beard is currently at a decent creep level. Awesome.

Oh and as I was leaving I noticed a banner:







Cherry Blossoms are bi-coastal, HOLLLAAA.

Freeeeeemont

I vaguely remember hanging out in Freemont when Mer used to live there, but somehow I Forgot that Lenin lives there too.


That's a big old statue of Vladimer Lenin, for no real reason. In fact if you have $250K laying around you can have him!! I willing to go partial ownership, who wants to chip in?

But the real reason for the trip to Freeeeemont was the Troll.

I think it freaked me out a little more seeing it today then when I was like 12. Lauren says it was just cleaned up - it had graffiti all over it. I don't have the hutzpa to grafiti a man (do trolls have gender?) that can palm a car, so I kinda gotta give them props for that. Hope you have nice nightmares.

Family Life

So 7:00 am comes about pretty quick in Seattle, I heard Logan running around - although Mer kept him from waking me up (apparently they were up at 6:30)

Pretty fun day though, we went to the beach near the train tracks. Everyone handled the cold winds well, except me. I couldn't. I think DC doesn't have wind, thats the only explanation I could come up with.

All and all a nice day with the whole family.

Oh but I did have my first casualty:



I remember thinking, maybe I shouldn't bring the small paperback book because it might get messed up. Its nice not to listen to your own advice, got someone real close to blame - damn.

Planes are kind of a ridiculous concept

Made it to Seattle in one piece, so that's a plus. I wanted to take some action shots of the plane taking off and landing but then they told me to turn off my electronic devices. So I have a couple shots of things that look exactly the same from thousands of feet in the air. I might have even gotten a nice shot of Denver or Athens or some town, I'm not really sure.

But seriously I think its pretty ridiculous that humans fly machines that weigh tons at hundreds of miles an hour. Just man showing off its contempt of nature. Is contempt the right word? Yeah contempt*

Who really understands how planes work, with the thrust and all buisness?
Did the Wright brothers know what they were creating? I totally would have been in the camp trying to make an air machine that flapped wings like a bird - that just makes sense.


*paraphrasing a Simpsons joke, don't want to get into any copyright issues.

Packing (continued - not really)

I totally needed to plan my outfits better - I think outfits is the right term. I think I am going to go with 2 pairs of pants (wearing one of them on the plane), 5 short sleeve shirts, 2 long sleeves, one button down (flannel - it counts) and maybe a pair of shorts if I'm feeling crazy. Bag is getting a little full right now, little bit nervous - sleeping bag destroys space.

I figure I can get in a wash at my Sisters' before I leave and then maybe do an t-shirt/underwear load somewhere on the road. Only issue is I should do laundry at my house tonight to get "good" pairs ready for travel. Otherwise I'm rolling with the "elastic band that isn't really elastic anymore" pairs. Only time will tell what I end up with.

Accomplishments 2/Packings Begins

Went to the mall to get a water bottle and flashlight, didn't find either at Pentagon city, but I did manage to spend a crap load. Went with a ipod dock for the car - I figure two weeks alone in a car, its probably worth it. And I also got one of those soft macbook cases, its a little more cushion in case there is any unforeseen pushing.

And just as a heads up, there is no store in pentagon that sells flashlights. At least thats what I gathered when I walked around for an hour and didn't talk to any employees to ask if their store sold them. (And I just realized I probably could have checked out that little complex across the way - best buy probably has flashlights, damn)

But Target hooked it up with a maglite. (Its there for light and in case an 18 wheeler comes after me, so... yeah.) and a water bottle. So I could have gone there first and not spent money on things i didn't really need, niice.

Started packing tongiht, gonna be a tight one.



Also free on itunes right now Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked, its money

Accomplishments

I was able to knock off hiking shoes (I don't think I can legally call them boots) and road maps (I went with a big atlas of the US, I feel good about it) in a two store romp. Nice work Silver Sprung.

I was also able to pick up some paperbacks that I can bring with me into the West:
one has the subtitle "17 Molecules that changed history". Yeah I'm pretty stoked. But I can't look at it for fear I will start reading it and not have it for the trip.
I also snagged a thing of short stories. I was going to grab "Best American Short Stories of 2007" but couldn't remember what year my brother got me as a present a while ago. Turns out it was 2006, so much regret.

And I couldn't pass up the big guy
I went with "The Black Orchids" I can't remember if I've read this before but reading Nero Wolfe again never hurts.

Strategy Session III

Random things I need to remember to bring:

Passport (for Tijuana)
Lighter/matches (not sure I know where to get flint)
DVDs for plane ride - not sure if i want to carry them the whole time
Flip flops (if there is room)

Things I need to buy:

Water bottle (can I bring a water bottle on the plane or do I need to check it?)
Map book
Hiking boots
Flash light/head lamp (Joe?)


I feel like I'm forgetting a crap load of important things.

Strategy Secession 2

Cities:

Cities I need to spend a day and/or night in (Seattle already included):
Portland
San Fran
L.A.
San Diego*

Cities I want to see, but probably not stay in:
San Jose
Oakland
Tijuana*
Fresno?

I feel like I'm missing somewhere.


*If time allows

Strategy Session

Tentative plan:


April 17th - fly into Seattle.
April 18th - 25th Stay in Seattle.
April 25 - May 10th - Drive somewhere
May 11th - Back to work at 9:00 am.

That sounds like a pretty solid plan for being a week away from flight...right?