what a long, strange trip it's been

Well, this is going to be kind of short, but I'll post a longer version later. Here's an overview of time since my last entry.
Seattle: Nice place. I think we were kind of tired by the time we got there, so we mostly drank coffee and walked around for a day and then spent an afternoon at Mt. Rainier (gorgeous and wonderful!) before we headed up. The higlight was miraculously seeing a drag king show in Kent, WA, a smallish suburb. We've been missing shows and concerts consistently by about 3 days all over, so it was nice to finally see something.
Vancouver: More walking aimlessly, drank Maple Cream Ale on Granville Island, walked in Stanley Park, ate indian food. We camped on Mt. Seymour, which doesn't technically have camping but they let us stay in the group camping spot, all by ourselves, which was right next to a creepy empty house. The best part of Vancouver: While eating in Naam's, a veggie restaurant, we saw Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman from Le Tigre! More about that in a later post.
Well, I'm out of time, so Denali and Montana will come later when internet access is more extended.

creepy doppelgangers

It took us forever to get to Portland (about 2 days), and when we had set up camp we went in to town to find an internet cafe. The one we found was having a gallery-opening-type party, with all sorts of trendy hipster people around. I saw people who looked just like Greta (or maybe her sister, Erin), Erica (but pregnant, very strange) and my old roommate Jean. It was totally disorienting.

road trippin' part 1

So far, our trip has been pretty successful. We started out with two days in San Diego, sitting on the beach and attempting to visit Balboa Park, which was highly unfulfilling in terms of park-ness. We spent maybe 15 minutes driving around looking for somewhere sizeable to sit on the grass, and when we finally found one I got the crap scared out of me by a caterpiller that crawled onto the armpit of my sweater and poked me with, I suppose, its foot. Of course, this resulted in my yelping and ripping the sweater off and then nervously swatting at my armpits for the next hour every time I thought about it. Then we spent a long time trying to find an open lesbian bar (harder than it sounds) and drove through the gaslamp quarter. There were hills there that impressed me, but were trivial compared to San Francisco.
Next, we went to visit Jesse in Santa Cruz. What an awesome city! Fairly small, all hills and forest and beach. We visited the crazy-ass boardwalk (passing on the fried twinkies), went to see some redwoods, and went to a wine tasting (yummy!). Anna and I also visited Natural Bridges, a state park that could more aptly be titled Natural Bridge, since there is only one bridge there. Also, weirdly, the park supposedly has full wireless internet access, god knows why.
Yesterday we drove here, to San Francisco. We left super early, as Anna and I were attempting to get a camping site at a state park and we realized too late that it is 4th of July weekend and everybody is trying to camp at the fifteen camping sites here. Anyway, we left at about 7:45 and still didn't get a spot, at which point we drove for about 2 hours up Highway 1 to another site before deciding, just as we got there, that it was a bad idea and we should really just stay at a hostel. So we drove back. Very scenic, but totally unnecessary. Anyway, we came back to the city, visited the pirate store at 826 Valencia (arrrrrgh!!!) and Good Vibrations, then had another somewhat unsatisfying trip to Golden Gate Park (it was very cold and windy). We ate dinner at the Stinking Rose, a restaurant that "seasons its garlic with food," with two of Jesse's friends. The drive home was terrible, including me having to roll my car backwards down the biggest hill ever to be paved and a near-death experience at a very confusing intersection. Today, we saw about half of a play put on by the San Francisco Mime Troupe (www.sfmt.org) about people trying to do good but being corrupted by money. Then we walked around the Castro (rainbow flags galore) and downtown Berkeley for a while and came home. Tomorrow Jesse and his friend leave for China, Anna and I check into a budget hotel and wander the city, and parking will most likely be terrible.
Anna says I sound like I'm not having fun, but really I am. So there.

livin' the dream

It's my last full day in Flagstaff. I've actually been having a somewhat easier time here than normal, not too much parental strife or anything going on. I've been spending a lot of time with the two people who I still know who live here, Emily and Jared, and I've just finally been taking some time to relax. I went on two hikes this week, the first by myself on a trail called "Fatman's Loop" and the second with Emily on a trail off of Schult's Pass Road. The first was nice because I've never actually been hiking by myself before; it's a much quieter experience, and I can freak out when big bugs land on me without anybody laughing at me. The second was just such a nice trail, leading up through trees to a big meadow and then suddenly ending in a very nice rocky promontory that looked out over the east side of town. Now, of course because I'm such a wimp, my legs are sore, but I truly enjoyed both days.
Tomorrow I'm driving to Tucson, and Anna and I are leaving on Sunday for San Diego. We'll stay there all of Monday and then take off for Santa Cruz Tuesday morning to stay with Jesse for a few days. We're driving him and his friend to San Francisco on the 2nd and camping there for a few days. A good friend of mine from high school gets back on the 3rd, so I think we're doing something on the 4th with her and then leaving the next day. We're taking two days to drive to Portland, camping and maybe hiking somewhere in the middle, and that's where our plans get a little muddy. A little while in Portland, a little while in Seattle (maybe staying with my ex-roommate Meredith if she ever writes me back), a little while in Vancouver and then somehow heading for Alaska. It's looking more and more like we're driving there, staying a few days, and then driving back partway and taking a ferry back to Vancouver. At least that's kind of the plan, we'll see what actually ends up happening.
I'm excited but as always a little apprehensive. I get so worried about money and time and all the little things that can go wrong. I hope I can use this trip to help myself become better at forgetting all those things, or at least not letting them ruin my enjoyment in this experience.

colorado, my home sweet home

After a mostly lovely and interesting week in Colorado, I'm back in Flag again. We spent the last five days at a resort place in Pagosa Springs with my grandparents and uncle from BOulder, my aunt and uncle from Georgia, and my parents and sister. We went horseback riding (you are all allowed to laught at the image of me on a horse; it was fun but painful the next day), on a "scenic" (read long and slow) train ride, and rafting on a very mild stretch of the San Juan. I loved the rafting, as mostly tame as it was, and it made me really want to go on an actual legitimate more-than-two-hours-long trip someday. We also ate lunch in the town I was born in, Cortez, CO. I was born overlooking Highway 666, how ominous ius that?
The bad, or at least upsetting, parts of the trip were mostly family related. My uncle from Boulder had basically a temper tantrum on the night we all arrived, and we didn't actually see him come out of his room until Thursday. My grandfather has Alzheimer's, and it is terrible to see him so much worse off every year when we come to visit. I know that so much has been written or filmed about this, but it's so much worse to actually see someone you love begin to lose themselves. The last day I saw him, he made some totally random statement to me and then said "Don't pay any attention to me, no one else does." I felt like crying, it's so hard to see him knowing what's happening to him and having to just do what he still can anyway.
Anyway, I'm in Flag until next Friday, when I'm leaving for Tucson and then the road trip! I'll have a little internet while I'm gone but not much, so I probably won't be writing too often. But we'll see.

home again, home again

School's out for summer! Whooooo! I wrote a fifteen page paper on the appropriated masculinities of Elvis, John Travolta, and Michael Jackson, made my final annotated bibliography, and packed up all my crap and put it in storage beneath the condo I lived in. Also said good bye to all my friends (all four of them), which was kind of sad. But now I'm home in Flagstaff, missing Anna and waiting to go to Colorado tomorrow to "hang out" with all my relatives. It'll either be okay or insanely boring, I need to find another book to bring along in case of emergency. Hopefully it will at least have good scenery, anything with mountians rocks my world anayway.
After that, Anna and I will start our monster road trip, so the summer is looking up! Yay for trips! I watched the first half of The Motorcycle Diaries last night, made me want to just get going. Also made me want to tell my parents, "At least we have a running vehicle!" They are not so happy about the trip idea, but oh well.

workin' for a living

Whooo, Anna scored with her first Americorps interview! She got a job tutoring children and doing community outreach-type stuff with an organization called Project YES! for next year. It's funny, we worry so much about what to do right after we graduate, and she totally got a job on the first try. It's been really fun having her here, of course, spending too much money going out for breakfast and drinks and everything in between, really good times. I've seen more of Chicago in the past week than in the past month, which is also cool. I finally made it to Chicago's zine store, Quimby's, which is so fucking cool. I bought a few zines there, and maybe sometime I'll send in one of mine since they work on commission. All in all, a good week.