when it comes to hot springs, sometimes it's best to read the warnings afterwards

Seattle marked the first city on the trip that both Curt and I had previously been to, so it was the only place where we could really gauge a second impression. Our first trip to the city was during a college summer vacation. We had beautiful sunny weather all three days we were there and we spent most of our time perusing Pike Place Market and keeping the caffeine levels in our systems abnormally high, visiting as many coffee shops as humanly possible over 72 hours. The second trip wasn't all that different, aside from the fact that this time we were staying with friends, so we had some company for our obsessive caffeine ingestion and produce sampling.

Rachael, one of my very dearest friends from home, and her boyfriend Jarvi recently moved into a triplex that already feels like a warm and well lived in home (definitely trumping the cheap motel we stayed at on our first trip). The pull-out in the front room was ours for a few nights and it couldn't have been a better set up, especially since their place is midway between two coffee houses, neither more than a block away. My personal preference was Caffe Vita over Lighthouse Roasters. It's amazing how you can develop a loyalty to one coffee shop over another in less than a week.

Of course, in Seattle there's the opportunity to develop a preference for several coffee shops over others, and that's why this is such a great city (for people like me, at least). A couple other favorites:

For a great, full, flavorful cup of good old fashioned black coffee - Caffe Ladro. You'll think you ordered some fancy schmancy mocha for the punch this coffee packs. Yum.

For a coffee shop to chill at for an hour or two, people watch, sip a decent coffee, and enjoy the scenery - Bauhaus Books and Coffee. Plus, its location on Pine is steps away from tons of interesting shops and cafes.

One coffee shop we didn’t visit was the original Starbucks. You can only tell it’s the original Starbucks because of the line of snapshot taking tourists wrapping around the corner. In every other way, it looks exactly like the Starbucks you might see in Minneapolis, or Germany, or on 50 other corners in Seattle. And while Seattle is the city where Starbucks started - so I guess there’s some sort of cultural relevance there, though it’s a stretch - it is the city where the independent coffee house got its start in America too. We didn’t want to wait half an hour to order a coffee from the place that makes its business out of suffocating the little guys.

We chose not to do the space needle (didn’t do it on the first trip either) because it seemed like an overpriced tourist trap. Correct me if I’m wrong; I might be. The space needle does make for a cool screen print image on a t-shirt, though. We saw one at Pike Place Market, which is also a bit of a tourist trap. What Pike Place Market has going for it though, if you choose to actually buy some things there rather than try to take pictures of flying fish (which don’t fly unless you are purchasing them, FYI), is that it offers some really excellent produce. Peaches that melt in your mouth (and all over your hands) and cherry tomatoes as sweet as candy.

Okay - one more food-related note. Seattle is obviously an excellent place to get coffee. This is not news. What I didn’t know is that it’s the place to get ice cream. Homemade natural ice cream with local ingredients and freshly made waffle cones. So fresh you’re watching the workers pour batter into waffle irons and roll the cones as you wait. So fresh the waffle cone is still warm when you get your ice cream. The place is Molly Moon’s and Rachael and I stood in line there for over 20 minutes at 10 o’clock at night on a Monday. It was worth every second. If you’re in Seattle and you don’t go there, you better be lactose intolerant. That’s all I have to say about that.

As it’s about a three hour straight shot from Portland to Seattle, we missed the bit of coast in between the two. To make up for that, and just to have a nice weekend outside the city, Curt and I went camping with Rachael and Jarvi on the Olympic Peninsula. We took the ferry out there, which was absolutely beautiful but quite windy.

As far as camping went, we lucked out. We found a beautiful spot, no bugs, quiet campsite, and access to a great hiking trail. Apparently, we also lucked out with the hot springs that the trail led to. We found a perfect little hot tub sized hot spring, hung out in the hot tub temperature water, and drank the beers we had picked up on our way in (and which Rachael carried the whole hike up - we thought she was crazy at first and were later very thankful). The four of us felt as though we were visiting a natural spa (and for $16 a night!) The 'spa' feeling waned a little as we read the warning about the hot springs at the trailhead on our way out. You might be wondering why we didn't read it on the way in. I don't really have an answer for you. What I can say is that it warned about contagious bacteria. What I can also say is that none of us caught anything (thankfully!) Reading the sign, we were glad we had at least decided to jump in the frigid waters of the nearby river on our walk out. A little rinse off is always a good idea when it comes to contagious bacteria, I have to assume.

Some less cringe-inducing swimming happened the following day at Crescent Beach, which had the clearest water I've seen in a lake. Ever. We rented a rowboat, took it to the other side of the lake, and washed away any lingering worries about the hot springs.

To round out our swimming experiences, after the possibly contaminated hot spring and freshwater lake, we visited the ocean. The beach we went to had an incredible amount of driftwood and - so exciting for me - tons of starfish (the name of the beach escapes me at the moment, I'm not trying to be selfish with it). We hiked around there for hours and, like the day before it, became so enraptured with what we were doing that we didn't think about getting back to the campsite for dinner until 9:00. So we ate in the dark both nights, but it was worth it. Things like that tend to happen when you're with good friends in beautiful places.

If you go to Seattle, which I think you should, get yourself over to the Olympic Peninsula as well. It's more than worth it. While you're there, though, you might want to avoid Forks. This is the town the Twilight series is based in. It wasn't actually filmed there, nor is there anything to take a picture of that has anything to do with the books or movies besides the town sign. Regardless, the whole town has turned into one big Twilight themed tourist trap. We got lunch at a totally normal seeming restaurant, only to find things like Bella's Favorite Sandwich on the menu. I feel for the locals. And I apologize to any Twilight fans I may have offended in this blog. Til next time ~

i left my heart in portland

Day: 34

Mileage: 5250

Going to Portland was like coming home. Or more accurately, it was like coming home and finding it to be somehow better than when you left it. I felt like I was meeting Minneapolis’s cool older sister. I had heard Portland described as ‘like Minneapolis but better’ and, as a Minneapolis girl, I thought, Well, that’s not very nice. Minneapolis is a very cool city. And it is. I love Minneapolis. But Portland’s cooler.

Our first destination was the Hawthorne neighborhood in Southeast Portland. Walking down Hawthorne, the storefronts went something like this: vegetarian friendly cafe, independent bookstore, vintage shop, pub, vegetarian friendly ethnic food cart, repeat. We stopped in a boutique dishware shop (I’ll let you guess whether it was me or Curt who chose to go into that one) and the woman running the shop first assumed we were locals and then, learning we were not, spent about 20 minutes giving us the lowdown on the area and writing down her suggestions of where to go (all of which turned out to be excellent recommendations). It was a wonderful and welcoming introduction to the city (and I have to admit I was flattered to be mistaken for a local - which hadn’t happened in any city up to that point, but happened three more times while we were in Portland).

The Hawthorne district was what Minneapolis’s Uptown could be if the new stores coming in were fair trade import shops and creperies rather than The North Face and Columbia (next freaking door to each other, by the way). It was lovely. We were staying at the Hawthorne Hostel, which felt the whole time like we were staying at a good friend’s house, minus the good friend. I have never been so comfortable in a hostel. I can confidently say that if you’re going to Portland and you don’t have a friend to stay with (or - depending on the friend - even if you do), you should stay at the Hawthorne Hostel. There just can’t be many places better than that. And certainly not for that price.

While you’re staying there, you should walk down the street to McMenamin’s Bagdad Theater, where you can see a second run movie for $3 while you drink a beer for about the same price. The Bagdad is cheap, fun, and you can have a drink without sneaking it in a Nalgene bottle like you’re underaged and going to a college party. Why there aren’t more theaters like this is beyond me. The McMenamins, if you haven’t heard of them, have bought up and renovated a whole slew of old buildings in the area and turned them into legitimately cool places to hang out, while also preserving some local history. At first you feel a bit like you’ve entered McMenamin Kingdom rather than Portland, which is a little weird, but once you realize what the McMenamins have done with their apparent scads of money, it’s pretty cool.

Okay... I’m having a bit of a hard time writing about Portland because nothing negative, uncomfortable, or embarrassing happened there. Which is great for us, but it makes for a fairly boring blog entry. My apologies. Blame Portland for being comfortable, invitig, and consistently cool. And on that note, I forgive you, Oregon, your mediocre coastal towns and your tweakers in the mountains for the artsy, eco-friendly, make-you-feel-like-a-local-in-the-first-20-minutes haven that is Portland. If you can produce a city like that, then whatever you want to do with the rest of your state is just fine. You can even insist on pumping my gas. I will gladly wait in the car, daydreaming about Portland’s many microbrews and bookstore coffee houses.

I have no funny stories for you, so we’re going to do this a little differently this time:

The Cup & Saucer - On Hawthorne, kickass little breakfast joint. Good food and a good atmosphere. The kind of place every neighborhood should have but few actually do. The waiter almost spilled a pitcher of water on us, dropped several menus on the table, and seemed generally confused throughout our meal, but the rest of the experience was so good that he just added charm.

Stumptown Coffee - A Portland staple. You can find their coffee beans all over Portland, and in other cities as well, but they also have a few coffee shops. The one I went to was on Belmont and it lived up to my coffee shop expectations, which are generally high and particular. I didn’t time it right, but there are also free daily coffee tastings next door.

Japanese Gardens - Surprisingly expensive, but beautiful. Strangely, my favorite part was the view of the city from the gardens, with Mt. Hood behind it. The perspective made it look like the mountain was floating in the sky above Portland.

Rose Gardens - Not as beautiful as the Japanese Gardens, but free. Plus, any time you can be in a city and walk through row after row of roses, it’s a nice thing.

Vintage Shopping - So, so many cool little vintage shops that are set up like boutique stores with pricing like thrift shops. Surprise bonus - there’s no sales tax in Oregon.

Doug Fir Lounge - In East Burnside, this bar/music venue is a must see for the decor alone - a perfect log cabin/modern architecture hybrid. The band we saw there was crap (heavily influenced by Three Doors Down and Creed, with an overzealous bassist and a keyboardist in his 50s with gut-length curly red hair), but, in Doug Fir’s defense, it was a Monday night and the cover charge was about the price of a beer.

The Farm Cafe - Also in East Burnside. This great little restaurant specializes in local, farm fresh ingredients and was a perfect birthday dinner for this tofu and produce-loving vegetarian. Plus, their coffee ice cream/fudge brownie dessert was a molten bowl of heaven.

Alberta - A neighborhood that is much like Hawthorne, but a bit quieter, which makes it a delightful little surprise when you find its incredible little art galleries, vintage shops, food carts, and coffee shops - especially...

Barista - In Alberta neighborhood, on Alberta. Minimalist but stylish decor, serious coffee. While in Portland, I also learned that Intelligentsia - which I recommended in LA - is based in Chicago. So, go to the one there too, I guess.

Lucky Labrador Beer Hall - Good local beer, decent food, and a dog-friendly patio. Excellent for two road-weary travelers who miss their family pooches.

Cargo - A huge store in the Pearl District where you could spend hours finding strange little knickknacks from all over the world, as well as some incredible antique furniture pieces. Walk around long enough, and you’ll convince yourself that what your apartment really needs is a collection of vintage typewriter keys and a mannequin head.

Best Overheard Quote in Portland (in an urgent voice, heavy German accent): “Hello! My name is Gunther! I come from Germany! I am looking for a room!”

Relax, Gunther, you’ve come to the right place. Portland is the best American city this girl’s been to thus far.

you can't pump your own gas in oregon

Day: 30

Mileage: 4897

This is the first lesson we learned in Oregon. And by ‘learned’ I mean the girl selling cigarettes out of the drive-thru window of the gas station shouted, “You can’t do that here, sir; it’s illegal,” to Curt as he grabbed the gas pump and attempted to do what I’m pretty sure is totally normal in 49 other states. I have not yet figured out why it’s illegal here, but apparently it is.

This wasn’t exactly the friendly ‘Welcome to Oregon’ I was expecting. But then again, I don’t really know what I was expecting. It’s just that we spent something like three and a half weeks in California, so I wanted the entrance to Oregon to be noteworthy and inviting. But then I either missed the sign that said Oregon or there wasn’t one, and the first thing we did when we got there was break the law.

Once we filled up the lawful way and got back on the road, I was happy to discover that the coastal highway in Oregon is significantly less curvy (read less nausea-inducing) than its Californian counterpart.

Here’s one thing I haven’t addressed yet that should be noted for the benefit of any other Minnesotan who decides to take a West Coast summer trip and expects places like California and Oregon to be warmer than the Midwest. They’re not. Not when you’re on the coast, at least, where it is often cool, foggy, and windy. And the trouble is, I didn’t exactly research this before we left. Which means I didn’t pack for it. Which means that when we’re camping and essentially living outside, I end up wearing outfits that make me look like a newsie.

There may be beaches all along the coast, girls and boys, but the heat of the sun is inland. So we went inland. Not only because of the weather or the fact that my outfits were getting more ridiculous by the day, but coastal Oregon just wasn’t grabbing us for some reason and we wanted to see what it was like farther inside the state. Part of the reason coastal Oregon wasn’t grabbing us is because we were having trouble finding a decent campground. We kept finding these places with 150 campsites and RV hookups filled with the type of people who don’t mind camping next to 149 other parties and enjoy traveling in an RV. At one such campsite, a little boy biked past me and asked if I knew the people who “lived” in the campsite next to ours. He said he was looking for his friend. When I said I was sure he’d be back soon, the boy said, “Yeah, he’s been missing for three days,” and rode on. I have to assume that ‘missing’ doesn’t actually mean missing in this case, but at any rate, some of these campgrounds can be a little weird.

Speaking of weird - a note about California I forgot to mention earlier. There is a town called Bodega where they filmed Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Maybe we just hit it at an especially spooky, overcast moment, but if there was ever a town that looked like the set of a Hitchcock film, this is it. There even seemed to be a strange number of swooping, menacing birds in the area. We stopped for coffee there and the guy running the coffee shop seemed to have forgotten he worked there. He was doing something on his computer when we arrived and it took him a full minute to realize we were there, get behind the counter, and ask us what we wanted. He mumbled absolutely everything he said, but I did catch that Tippy Hedren from The Birds had been in town the previous week for an event.

Back to Oregon. On our way inland to try to warm up, we stopped at the beach at Cape Lookout, on the suggestion of my good friend Rachael (who is originally from Minnesota but lived in Oregon for some time and whose couch we will be crashing on shortly at her new place in Seattle). It turned out to be a great suggestion. The beach was gorgeous. Not warm enough to swim (or even de-layer, in my case), but warm enough to roll up your pants and stroll through ankle deep waves for a while.

On our drive inland, we watched the temperature rise degree by degree on the car’s thermometer and found a place to camp at Gales Creek, where it read a balmy 74 degrees. It was a small, quiet campground with nice hiking and I wasn’t shivering, so I can’t complain.

Our camping neighbors that night were members of the Oregon Gay Men’s Chorus, or at least that’s what I imagined them to be. They were very friendly, but their voices carried during their late night campfire, teasing each other about the contents of their respective refrigerators. So it wasn’t the most peaceful night, I guess, but it was still an improvement from what we had found in Oregon thus far.

Having some success with inland Oregon, we decided to go in a little farther the next day and drove past Portland (not skipping, just postponing) toward Mt. Hood. On our way to Mt. Hood we passed an exit for the town of Boring - seriously, Boring - and I wondered if maybe we should turn around and go straight to Portland after all.

We attempted to stop at two informational Mt. Hood ranger stations, but both were closed (at noon on a Saturday - one for the whole weekend and the other for the lunch hour), so we decided to drive in the direction of the nearest campsite. On our way there, we came across an area that was not a campsite but where there were paths, the slightest suggestion of a dirt road and other campers, all along a river and with a gorgeous view of the mountain. We discovered shortly thereafter that the actual campground had the benefit of outhouses and garbage cans but no views of the mountain and no access to the river. And since we hadn’t really roughed it for a night yet, we thought why not do it in a place where we can have a whole section of a river to ourselves and wake up looking at Mt. Hood? I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to pee in the woods for something like that.

Our plan had been to do some hiking that day, but the area was too peaceful, the sun was too warm (hallelujah!) and the views were too great to leave. We sat by the river and swam (actually speed-bathed, camping style) and generally soaked up the goodness.

Travel tip: If the area you’re in during the day seems too good to be true, it just might be. Non-designated camping areas along beautiful rivers in scenic areas by day may double as local hangouts/raucous party centrals by night. Camp at your discretion. Be prepared to be awoken by intoxicated stragglers from the raucous party and pack up camp much earlier in the day than you may have planned.

Ah well, on to Portland.

the lost coast and found adventure

Day: 27

Mileage: 4500

The great thing about road trips is that sometimes places will surprise you. Take, for example, Oakland. I knew nothing about Oakland before going there, really, but I had the general feeling that Oakland was, well, the way I found much of San Francisco to be. And I’m sure parts of it are. However, on our way out of San Francisco we met up with Alex’s friend Molly who is living in Oakland with her boyfriend Nate on a sailboat. My impression of Oakland now is that it’s really cool and my impression of living on a sailboat is that I want to do it.

The following morning, Chloe and Alex hit the road, heading back to Minneapolis with a pit stop in Yellowstone, and the road trip was officially me, Curt and the Outback once again. I really enjoy hanging out with my sister - she’s a pretty cool girl - and her boyfriend’s pretty cool as well, so it was a little sad to see them go. Plus, the previous week had marked the California vacation my family had been planning on taking for 10 years or so.

It being just us again, we hit up two vineyards on the way out of wine country to drown our sorrows. Not really. But we did stop at two vineyards - Benziger Family Winery and their sister winery, Imagery. Curt and I are really more beer people than wine people, but even if you can’t tell wine from grape juice the vineyards are so beautiful, it’s totally worth it. And the wine was, not surprisingly, really freaking good. (Not being a wine connoisseur, I’m afraid I can’t give you a much better description than that. Wait until I get to Seattle, though. I’ll write more about coffee than you’ll want to read. Promise.)

To balance out our high class wine experience, we brought ourselves back down with our first (and probably only) fast food stop of the trip. Plus, we were really hungry. They don’t feed you at the vineyards. Not unless you count those miniature breadstick things, I guess. But I think those are just to cleanse the palate and you might get a weird look from someone if you started snacking on them. Also, Curt says that In-N-Out Burger is a big West Coast thing and they make all their french fries fresh, so it’s really more of a cultural experience than a breaking of our no fast food rule.

That night we camped at Salt Point State Park and found a peacock wandering by our campsite the next morning. I was both thrilled to add peacocks to our list of wild animals encountered on the trip and surprised that peacocks were native to California. Who knew? That is until the peacock was way too comfortable with Curt taking his picture from about eight inches away and the camp host told us that peacocks are raised by the resort across the road.

Next stops were Mendocino and Fort Bragg. Mendocino is a cool little town with some nice art galleries, decent cafes and friendly people. If you need a good little downtown area to walk around (say you’re coming from San Francisco and don’t want to have to worry about what’s around the corner, for example). Mendocino’s a great place to do it. Fort Bragg isn’t bad either. But what you actually need to see if you happen to be in the area is Glass Beach. Heading north out of Fort Bragg, turn left at the Denny’s (as the nice old man in the sea glass museum instructed us) and you’ll come upon a pleasant but ordinary looking state beach. Even walking out onto it, it seems no more interesting than any of the countless other beaches along the coast. Until you crouch down, that is, and realize that there’s so much sea glass on the beach that if you wanted to take some of it home with you, it might make more sense to scoop up a handful and pick out the rocks and sand.

This beach exists the way it does apparently because the area used to be a big dumping ground for glass. Which is kind of awful, actually. But if anything beautiful ever came from something ugly, it’s sea glass. And a whole beach of it is something to see. Plus, if you do choose to take a handful of it home, all you’re really doing is participating in beach clean up.

And a good deed like beach clean up deserves a reward - so we took ourselves to the Lost Coast (the chunk of coast where the Pacific Highway veers inland because the coast gets even curvier and crazier than usual). Then there’s that no good deed goes unpunished thing - so the campsite we ended up at was along a creek (beautiful) with a heavy supply of mosquitos (not so beautiful), the first we’d experienced in California. But we are Minnesotans after all, so a few mosquitos don’t ruin a camping experience. Nor do they deter Curt from cooking a full on meal over the campfire. It turned out to be his best yet. Pesto pasta with mushrooms, potatoes, green beens and parmesan.

Here’s what I was doing:

Girls, marry a guy who can (and likes to) cook.

A travel tip I forgot to mention earlier: If you’re going to sleep in the car because it’s so windy you think you might blow away in your sleep and wake up in Nebraska (scary!), and you lock all your food in the car top carrier - having learned your lesson with leaving anything resembling food outside - don’t be surprised if you are awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of a raccoon on your moon roof desperately trying to figure out how to get that car topper open.

The Lost Coast is (shocker!) not exactly easy to get to; the roads are so twisted I was nauseous most of the way there and had to take a little breather at the drive-thru tree tourist trap (in case you’re wondering, a Subaru Outback with a roof rack is too tall to actually drive through it). But by the time we got to our campsite (after I laid down, settled my stomach and swatted a few mosquitos), I was really glad we were there. After dinner, we washed our dishes in the stream like real campers and the next morning we took a great hike right from our campsite.

So, the Lost Coast is definitely something I would recommend. However, if you could find a way to take a helicopter there, I would recommend that as well. If we thought we were crazy for taking the road we took into the Lost Coast, then we should be committed for the one we took out of it. Sure, the sign said King’s Peak Road is narrow and windy, but we but we thought nothing of it, seeing as since we entered California and got on Highway 1, we’ve been driving on narrow, windy roads pretty much exclusively. I propose this rewrite of the sign regarding King’s Peak Road, and the California State Parks board should consider itself more than welcome to post it:

King’s Peak Road, while a two-way street, is rarely wide enough for more than one car to pass and often has a width more suitable for something like a scooter or a mule. Only if the mule is sturdy and has excellent balance, though, since much of the road has a mountain wall on one side and a quickly descending mountainside on the other. (Does it need to be mentioned that there are no guard rails?) Don’t waste time wondering what might happen if a vehicle comes at you from the opposite direction. It won’t do you any good and the potential scenarios will not help your nerves. On the plus side, King’s Peak Road won’t make you quite as nauseous as Highway 1, since, while it is constructed like a horizontal roller coaster, it is impossible to drive very quickly on, especially since you have to literally drive across a creek some four or five times along the way.

Having survived our trip out of the Lost Coast, we reentered society in the direction of Eureka (as in ‘Eureka! King’s Peak Road is a death trap but we’re alive!’) There, we came to the conclusion that there had not been enough alcohol related destinations in California and stopped at the Lost Coast Brewery for dinner. (No comparison to Sierra Nevada, in my opinion, but worth a visit.)

After having stayed with her brother in LA and her mom in Chico, it was only appropriate to stay with my cousin Teresa and her husband Greg while we were in their territory of California, just north of Eureka. Teresa and Greg are newlyweds and they are both environmental engineers, which translates to really smart people who are putting their energy into saving the world. I hadn’t seen Teresa for a full decade, so I felt really lucky to be able to spend some time with her, even if it was brief.

The next day was the first day of the trip that Curt and I really got on each other’s nerves. I wanted to drive five miles in the wrong direction for wifi and Curt wanted to push on. Then we couldn’t agree on where to stay. Etc, etc. We’ll call it the 27 day itch. But I have to say that if you are spending 24 hours a day with someone driving across the country and you only really annoy each other once every 27 days, then you’re doing pretty well. We found camping that night at a mediocre campground next to the best beach for driftwood that I’ve ever been to. We forgot our petty arguments over filling up our pockets with driftwood pieces that we imagine will someday be the handles of our as-now-nonexistent cabinets and doors.

Our last hurrah in California was a 10 mile hike along the James Irvine trail to Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek. Several people in California recommended Prairie Creek and Fern Canyon to us and I will now repeat it. Go to Prairie Creek and Fern Canyon. This is the area of California where they filmed Jurassic Park, and once you’re there you’ll understand why. You may see wild elk on your way in, but once you’re hiking a trail, you’ll expect to see a triceratops come barreling around the corner. The redwoods make you feel like you’re two inches tall (in a positive way, I promise) and Fern Canyon is a natural playground. It’s perfect. Go there.

inland can be cool too

Day 24

Mileage 4185

The post-Big Sur depression continued from Carmel-by-the-Sea into the campground we found for that night (our first KOA of the trip, which was connected to an equestrian resort). You leave a place like Big Sur and it's hard to believe you'll see anything that beautiful again. You just keep wanting to turn around and go back. It was the middle of the week, and the KOA campground was almost deserted, so it was actually pretty nice. I thought so at least. Curt was annoyed by KOA's marketing. They call their restroom and laundry areas 'Comfort Stations' and the flat open field where we pitched our tent was called Amber Meadows or Golden Fields or something else that sounded vaguely like both a microbrew and a suburban development. Aside from that, though, since the campground was empty, so was the associated beach access. Having the ocean to ourselves for a little while helped us cope with no longer being in Big Sur. 'Surfing' the sand dunes also helped. (The following morning, we tried to jog the beach, though. I am now convinced that being compelled to jog through sand falls under the category of cruel and unusual punishment. That's the first and last time I'll be doing that.)

Later that day, we were in San Francisco, but I'm not going to talk about that yet since we went back to the city later...

This is a West Coast trip, for the most part at least, but we took a jaunt inland to visit Wine Country, attend a kickass wedding and venture out to a relative's hidden paradise in Chico. Remember pseudo-cousin Brittany from San Diego? We stayed at her dad's place in Sonoma, where Alison's (another pseudo-cousin) wedding was. In Chico, we stayed with my dad's cousin Marcia. Remember Ben from LA? That's his mom. And for all this, my mom, dad, sister Chloe and her boyfriend Alex were in California to enjoy the festivities with us. Now that you're thoroughly confused...

Alison and Graham's wedding was the most fun I've had at a wedding since my own. It's a little cliche to call a wedding magical, but it's sometimes also true. Set in a Sonoma ranch on a day with perfect weather, local wine, delicious home-brew beer, and unbelievable food, the bride was radiant, the groom couldn't have looked happier, and the overall vibe was peaceful and perfect. Not to mention the music. Alison and Graham and a good number of their friends are classical musicians, Alison's sister does musical theater in New York City, and Graham's brother and father are folk musicians. So the whole 'get your friends and family to provide the music for your wedding' thing was a little different at this one.

Sonoma in general (and Ross and Anita's place specifically) was a pretty great party as well. Anita is Ross's amazing Irish wife, who was the officiant at the wedding, is the best host anyone could ask for, and she can also play the flamenco on her guitar. I learned this late one night in Sonoma around the campfire. I learned a couple other things around the late night campfires there as well... and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Onto Chico then. Less of a party, more of a zen retreat. I've been missing my yoga classes while being on the road and Marcia's place made me miss them even more. You pull up to her house and you almost expect to see people doing sun salutations. And it suits Marcia, as she's about as zen a person as you'll ever meet. The first thing we did when we arrived, after being enthusiastically greeted by her chocolate lab Sequoia, was go swimming in the river behind her house. The water was cool, but not nearly as cold as the ocean, and Chico, being a few hours inland, was about 30 degrees hotter than the coast, so it felt great. Sequoia accompanied us and kicked our asses in terms of negotiating the current. That night we slept under the stars and I woke up thinking I might just move into Marcia's spare room for the remainder of the summer and say screw it to the rest of the coast.

But plans are plans (even when 'plans' means dodging responsibilities for the summer to travel the country), so we packed up the car once again and continued on. Not before making a pit stop at the Sierra Nevada brewery though. If you find yourself in Chico on a 94 degree day (and you're not lucky enough to know Marcia and be invited to swim in the river in the canyon and watch salmon leap in the water as you cool off), then your next best bet is to visit the Sierra Nevada brewery. The brewery itself is interesting, there's a great mural about the process of beer making, and the company is so environmentally responsible you'll feel like a good samaritan just by enjoying some of their tasty beer (and it is tasty). To top it all off, the food at their restaurant is incredible and we practically bought one of everything at the gift shop because the prices are nearly wholesale (apparently the owner of the company considers is advertising and thus doesn't want to mark up the prices). Seriously - we bought Sierra Nevada logo pint glasses on sale for a dollar. And then we bought everything else...

Okay - San Francisco. I think I dodged writing about it earlier because I'm not exactly sure how to write about it. I've been thinking about it a lot though and here's what I think it is. San Francisco is, for whatever reason, one of those cities I idealized in my head as I was growing up. The cable cars, the central California coast, Rice-a-Roni, etc etc. I did the same thing with Seattle (the birthplace of the American coffee house!), but the difference is that when I went to Seattle - knowing no one and with no objective other than to wander around the city and take it all in - it lived up to all my silly expectations. (Stay tuned in a couple weeks to see if it's the same the second time around.)

This isn't to say that I didn't like San Francisco. I just never got comfortable in the three days we were there. It was like an awkward first date. Or a first date with a guy you admired from afar but now you think he might be a drug dealer. San Francisco and I need a little more time to get to know each other.

But we don't have it. Not during this trip, at least. So for now, my mixed first impression will have to suffice.

Curt and I first arrived in San Francisco past-KOA campground/equestrian resort and pre-Sonoma. Our very first San Francisco experience was pulling into downtown having no idea where we were and being immediately confronted with streets so vertical it looked like you'd need a pulley system just to get your car up them and one-ways as far as the eye could see, somehow always going opposite the direction you expected them to. A bit of a rough start, maybe, but we've driven in Duluth, so the hills weren't so shocking (at least they weren't covered in ice) and every city has one-ways, so we were fine. Once the car was parked - and the emergency break set - the next job was finding lodging for the night. Downtown San Francisco has plenty of places to stay, but when you're on a budget in an unfamiliar city it's always a bit of a challenge. We're getting a little too old to do the 12 bed hostel room anymore and we also declined a very affordable private room at a hostel that was at the end of an alley next door to a 'massage' business with red lights and velvet curtains, settling for the somewhat less affordable though still very reasonable room at the Fitzgerald with a complimentary breakfast, a cool old school elevator, and less chance of bumping into a prostitute.

The Fitzgerald was also conveniently located close to a couple of the places my friend Sarah (who was a San Franciscan for a few years and is now back in Minneapolis) recommended. We tried The Hemlock, which was on a totally normal block in the city, and our hotel was on a totally normal block in the city as well, but the seven blocks in between were decidedly sketchy. Nonetheless, The Hemlock was a cool bar with a good beer selection and it seemed like one of those places where everybody knew everybody. While we were there, the bartender took off his shirt to show one of the customers his tattoos. And it probably would have been even cooler if we had known anyone there and not been the token non-tattooed Midwesterners, but whatever. Walking back down the sketchy blocks while it was still light out, we stopped at the bar Rye on our way back to the hotel. A little more of a yuppie crowd, and no bartenders taking their shirts off, but they served the best cocktails I've ever had. The back of the bar looked more like an organic salad bar than anything else, and it took the bartenders about 10 minutes to make the things, but the drinks were to die for.

Back in San Francisco some days later with Chloe and Alex, we found a great $2 Tuesday special at a great, ritzy little bar with a live deejay and friendly servers. Only problem was that we passed a minimum of five drug deals on our way there. No joke. The rest of San Francisco was much the same - very cool little places with some pretty uncool stretches in between. City Lights bookstore was the hangout for the Beats and is definitely worth visiting. Ritual coffee house in the Mission district was also great. I guess my San Francisco advice for now would be to take the cable car (which is not a trolley - San Franciscans will correct you) and ride it to as many places as you can. It's a little touristy, a little dorky, but it's also totally fun.

jack kerouac and i have at least one thing in common

mileage: 3300

day: 16

We both fell in love with Big Sur. Though, while Kerouac wrote his novel Big Sur while staying at Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn, I couldn’t get a room there on a Monday or a Tuesday night. We stopped by Deetjen’s anyway just to see it (check out their website - you’ll want to stay there too) and then I wrote my blog from our campsite instead. Though we didn’t get to stay at the culturally and historically significant Deetjen’s (back in the old days, they were a secluded getaway for the Hollywood elite), we saved about $170 by camping at Fernwood Resort along the Big Sur River, with redwood hiking trails (and even wifi), so I wasn’t too disappointed.

Let me back up a bit though, because some interesting things did happen on our way from LA to Big Sur.

We didn’t leave Malibu until 6 pm, so we had only a few hours of daylight with which to find a place to crash for the night. Travel tip: When you’re rolling into a less than ideal campground at dusk and your less than secluded campsite is bordered by a teenage drinking party, a father and sons group of inattentive dads and screaming kids, and a mystery person in a tent who can apparently snore through anything - this is the night to forfeit the tent and sleep in the car. I can attest that Subaru Outbacks make excellent noise barriers. Additional travel tip: When removing items to make room for your makeshift bed in the car, it is best not to leave perishable food items such as crackers and marshmallows outside. Even in crowded, noisy campsites, some little critter will inevitably come eat them during the night.

The following morning, Mystery Snoring Person awoke (after the screaming kids had gone through a couple renditions of the Jeopardy song) and turned out to be a woman in her 50s with a tent to herself and about 20 grocery bags, not all of them filled with groceries. She kindly offered us some tips on where to stay and what to avoid on our way north. I appreciated the tips, since we’re really just figuring things out as we go, but it didn’t take long for us to realize that, when you’re taking traveling advice from someone, you have to measure that with how much you have in common with that person. For example, we were given two recommendations for camping between where we were and Big Sur (with the highlights being that one had a pool and the other was in a town where there were two (two!) grocery stores). We visited both. The first seemed to be the dune buggy headquarters of America, with wide, sweeping dunes and ATV rentals as far as the eye could see. The second was not bad, but was crowded, and didn’t offer anything that made us want to stay the night. We decided to continue on to the off-the-beaten-path campground, Montana de Oro, instead. There were no showers and only ‘primitive’ toilets, but camping was a very reasonable $25 and it included access to some of the most gorgeous hiking paths I’ve ever seen.

I should note (in case you go there, discover this for yourself, and then hate me) that there were rattlesnakes. Real ones. On the walking path. I was relatively cool when we saw the first one (quietly repeating ‘Oh shit, oh shit’ as I hid behind Curt), but when we saw the second one’s head popping out of a hole in the ground as we were passing it, I was considerably less cool (speechlessly leaping behind Curt and grabbing onto his back). Apparently my instinct with poisonous snakes is neither fight nor flight but hide-behind-your-husband-and-offer-him-up-as-bait instead. (To be fair, I don’t technically know that the second one was a rattlesnake, since we only saw the head, but it was a large snake quickly emerging from a hole in the ground where my feet were about to be. And yes, I am now afraid of holes in the ground.) Despite that, this was the best place we’ve camped so far because it was so beautiful and peaceful.

You’re starting to think I’m crazy because I’m calling the rattlesnake camp beautiful and peaceful. More evidence then -

In addition to the rattlesnakes, though, it also had an abundance of poison oak (in case you're wondering - Curt is apparently allergic and I am not) and some mountain lions in the area (which are apparently rare - but I thought rattlesnakes were too...) In the middle of the night, we were awoken by a loud, angry, feline-sounding growl/hiss that was coming from somewhere much too close to our tent. Curt grabbed his weapon (a Swiss Army knife tied to a stick) and was ready to defend our camp against the mountain lion/raccoon/raccoon being eaten by a mountain lion. I remember being somewhat concerned, but Curt says I was sound asleep again within a minute. Apparently I felt protected (or I was ready to offer him up as bait again...).

Before leaving the next morning, and after the mountain lion scare had worn off, we decided to go hiking up a mountain. You know, where mountain lions live. (We had a largely uninteresting but loud and sustained conversation during the hike - taking the advice of the warning sign at the trailhead, which also advised against hiking alone and said to keep any small children in your party close, as they tend to be targets). Aside from the fear of being eaten, it was a lovely hike with almost no one else on the trail. By the time we got to the end, it was so hot and sticky that Curt stripped down to his boxers (when I told him I was putting that in the blog, he dropped the boxers too). Here's the PG rated documentation of that moment:

Having survived the hike, we were back on the road - next stop, Big Sur. There’s a point on the map called Big Sur, which is around the thickest concentration of Big Sur stops, but Big Sur is technically about a 60 mile stretch along Highway 1. A 60 mile stretch with almost no gas stations (not to mention few guard rails, pull offs, or shoulders). We nearly ran out of gas (we’re not fast learners with this sort of thing) and then had to pay $4.89 a gallon. That was a bit of a shock - and the possibility of running out of gas on that already nauseating, go cart track stretch of Highway 1 was a little nerve-wracking - but I’m actually glad it happened that way, since the fuel stop included the most interesting coffee stop we’ve had so far. There was a little espresso stand next to the gas pumps with two black cats and a guy playing a banjo on the steps in front of it. After a few seconds of waiting at the espresso stand, I realized that the banjo player was also the barista. The latte was not great. It wasn’t even good, actually, but the humming, singing, mumbling banjo player who made it was a great introduction to the world of Big Sur.

And it is a world of its own. More beautiful than any place I’ve seen in this country so far, and somehow retaining a remote feeling even though its in the middle of California’s coastline (maybe it’s due to all the hairpin turns on Highway 1...) We spent the first evening watching dolphins and surfers play in the same stripe of ocean at Sand Dollar Beach and then camped at Los Padres National Park (second night in a row of camping with no showers, but it was pretty and there was a little silver fox who kept us company in the evening. If you’ve never seen a fox hop around, it’s one of the cutest, most playful things I’ve ever seen. But I don’t know much about foxes. So maybe he was hunting or trying to steal our food.

Also that evening, the universe taught me a lesson in going off the grid (which I think Curt has been trying to teach me for years). My phone was going back and forth between no service and roaming with one bar, but I could tell I had a voicemail message. So I spent 20 minutes or so standing on the picnic table trying to get reception, only to finally discover that it was an automated message from Target pharmacy, telling me that the prescription I had already picked up was ready. Moral of the story: no one needs to get ahold of you that badly. Turn the freaking thing off when you’re in a place like Big Sur.

A note to Ben and the rest of the LA crew: If you know someone who’s scouting locations for a horror movie and they need the creepiest bathroom in America, Los Padres is where it’s at. It’s a cold, cement box with no lights, no mirrors and a door that creeks open and slams shut. Which brings me to another point:

Penis Envy

On a long road trip with bathrooms like the above, out houses, primitive toilets, gas station restrooms, and port-a-potties, I have developed a strong case of penis envy. All Curt needs to use the bathroom is a quiet ditch.

The next morning was foggy, damp and muddy, and after two days of no shower and a couple of hikes, we were pretty dirty and feeling a little gross. Necessity is the mother of invention, though, so with a tarp, some trees, a couple bowls of water warmed with a camp stove, and a short break from modesty, we cleaned up.

Other than the incredible views along every inch of Big Sur’s 60 miles, I would also recommend a stop at the Henry Miller Library (which is actually a book store/performance space/cool place to hang out). You might be wondering if I bought Jack Kerouac's Big Sur there. Yes, yes I did.

One thing I wouldn't necessarily recommend: traveling directly to Carmel-by-the-Sea as you leave Big Sur. This might seem like the logical thing to do, since Carmel is basically the first civilized thing you hit when you leave Big Sur, but it's a bit of an unpleasant culture shock. Carmel-by-the-Sea has some really great art galleries, which is why I wanted to visit it, not to mention some nice little cafes and a decent amount of shopping, but it also has, as Curt explained it, 'Too many old dudes in too short shorts, windbreakers, and that I'm better than you expression.' So, to prevent yourself from wanting to turn around and run back to the secluded comfort of Big Sur (or skip the art galleries and rich geezers and go swimming in frigid water at the beach instead, like Curt opted to do), I would suggest, I don't know, pulling over and reacquainting yourself with the more annoying things in life, like radio commercials and class wars. Because the art galleries are worth seeing. They really are.