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oh yes, give it to me, forgotten god of my Youth!

 

In all seriousness I didn't think With Teeth was so great, so I ignored Trent till The Slip, which was awesome.

 

I am of the age that pretty hate machine was the soundtrack to my teenage misery, so I feel I must repent this week. Only NIN in the car!

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.

Driving though OR and CA

All pictures here. Some in the entry.

Driving to San Francisco is cheaper than flying, certainly, for more than one person. Even this weekend I spend under $300 on gas. Even solo I think I might have spent more than that on a Virgin ticket.

Wall anyhoo. Reg started the driving just after 10am, and as usual the traffic on I-5 south was ridiculous till you got to Olympia. This is about 65 miles from Seattle, and the capitol of Washington, so I can only assume that there are weirdos who live in Seattle and commute to their government jobs in Olympia. I cannot conceive of this, as I have just moved to Bellevue to be closer to my job. I also don't care much about politics, since nothing I care about is being addressed.

Such as the extremely low speed limits in Oregon. I don't get this. In WA and CA, on a nice stretch of interstate, the speed limit is 70. Which is great, I love cruising at 77mph. It's a good speed, doesn't burn too much gas (we averaged around 400mpt), and when the speed limit is 70, you still get people passing you. So that's great. Whereas in Oregon, the fastest you can legally go ANYWHERE is 65mph. Now, people are still going 75mph, but not as many. A ticket for 5 over is not the same as a ticket for 15 over, right? That's fairly standard, right? So there are a significant number of people who don't go over the speed limit at all. This wasn't as widespread on I-5, fortunately. It was fairly easy to go 70mph on the long stretches, even when it was only 2 lanes. And of course you can always burn some gas on the uphill truck lanes to pass old farts.

Reg fell asleep when I put on Girl Talk's All Day, which I had stuck in my head thanks to perich. That got me through the worst of Oregon, all the way to Grant's Pass. We didn't switch again till the first rest stop in California, mainly because of an accident. Also, construction. MOTHER FUCKING INTERSTATE FIVE DOWN TO ONE LANE EACH WAY. During a summer Friday. You can't do this shit at night, assholes?

Oh yeah, driving on I-5 in August - I'd never done this before, and for the first time I hit the highest point on I-5 (Siskiyou Summit, 4310ft) and could see things. Including a big ol' thunderhead and Mount Shasta! (Reg had switched back in CA.) And it was hot, so hot, and we don't have a working air conditioner in our car right now. 105F baybe. It was only 90F in the car probably, but still. We were feeling rather crazed, Reg was hitting 100mph while we blasted New Order - as long as we weren't hitting the stupid fucking one lane restrictions. But going around tight mountain curves and weaving in and out of traffic with 3ft between you and big ass semis is something that typically makes me nervous. By the time we stopped for gas in Red Bluff, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Instead I had a cigarette and took lots of pictures of the sunset.

Boy, if I thought Reg was going fast BEFORE sunset... (see the blur?)

But of course that last stretch, when you get onto the highway bypassing Sacramento and going by Vacaville,  is insanely long and boring. I mean, oh my God, long long long. We blasted "Blinded by the Light" and "Nobody 'Cept You", then "The '59 Sound" since we hadn't cried enough. (I am not ashamed that these songs make me tear up. Reg mentioned our friend Jeremy and I just lost it.) We kept thinking the city lights we were seeing were SF, but no. I got super excited when I saw a carpool lane, though. "STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE!" I announced to Reg.

The toll on the bridge was $6, and it was so horribly inefficient. For those of you who don't live around here, there are two bridges to Seattle, I-90 and SR-520. They turned the latter into a toll road, but it took an extra year to get a "fast track" system for ALL cars. That is to say, if you don't have the pass (here it's called Good To Go!), they just send you a bill after a few trips. There's little cameras, you see, that take a picture of the front of your car if you don't have the special pass. Either way, there's no stopping, no booths, no difference between the old bridge and the new bridge, except you can see a sort of purple light as you approach the eastside/leave Evergreen Point.

Whereas in SF - and probably every other expensive toll bridge where you can't just throw change into a basket - you have to stop and wait for the guy to walk across to another booth to GET CHANGE. Because obviously at 9pm on a FRIDAY NIGHT no one will be going into SF without exact change! For fuck's sake, California. Stay classy.

Blargh. Finally off 80 and onto US 101, which you almost immediately get off to turn onto Valencia. Friday night traffic was abysmal, of course. Took us forever to get off 101. I was texting Steve like mad, all excited to see him. He warned us that his street specifically might be a hassle, since Mr. Woody Allen is filming a couple of scenes there for his new movie. Not the whole film, mind, just a few scenes. Parking was nonexistant, so after we blocked a driveway unloading our crap, I paid a nice foreign gentleman to park the car for the night. He charged us more than he charged Ry, but what can you do? It's a vacation, and we had free rooms.

Steve's new townhouse (thanks to the largess of his mother) is amazing. Legitimately a hundred years old, three stories - they rent the second one to pay for most of the mortgage. When we got there, just before 11pm, the kids were asleep so we just put our stuff on the couch, put on warmer clothes (it was forty degrees cooler, no shit) and went out for a couple drinks and food. We stopped at the Phoenix - great burgers, but super crowded, unsurprisingly. We then stopped at the Hideout, which sort of reminded me of the Hideout in Seattle, but without art. (I almost never leave the Mission when I'm with Steve.)

By then it was almost 1am, and we were all exhausted. Thus ended day one.

A Weeding!

When I was in high school, I figured I'd go to school in Texas. I applied to schools outside of Texas, of course, but you know. Small town girl. I was still in the top 5% of my class at nerd school, so I figured I'd stick to a small pond. And then I got a huge financial aid package to Duke University, so much so that I only would have to pay for about one year's tuition. Which, you know, was still more than in-state tuition for all four years. But my friend Dale, who was attending said school, pointed out that Duke would open a lot of doors for jobs afterwards, and paying off the loans would be a cinch. (I won't point out the flaw in his plan right now, since I was planning to major in Computer Science - and in fact I'd probably be all paid off if not for all those layoffs. At least I paid off my car.)

So, of course that changed my life irrevocably, opened my mind about 75% more than it ever had been before. I don't think college is for everyone, but for people in the 80th percentile and above, it's a rather essential experience, and I feel private schools tend to enrich this experience more.

Which is funny for me to say, since I thought Duke was the most inane environment ever. Fortunately my freshman year I had a roommate, Ana, who felt the exact same way. Duke is one of those rare beasts, a party school for academics. It was a world-class education, for sure, but every weekend you could go to five different mixers and get wasted off keg beer and stumble into bed and then have a lovely Walk Of Shame. Oh, yeah, and apparently there's a BASKETBALL TEAM!

Ana and I avoided most of this by getting into raves, and the film society. Technically I never belonged officially to the film club, but I went to most of the movies and a couple of the meetings. We also got apartment housing as soon as was humanly possible. Sometimes we were at odds, as I was even more tactless and filthy then, but I tried to learn how to be a good friend from her. We had a group - the Dudez - us, Clark, Holger, Sitar, Norman, and Fara. The latter two were more peripheral members, but they did participate in many important Dudez events. (Fara transferred after her freshman year, but she was still an honorary Dude. Technically the group didn't even form until our Junior year, since most of the members are two years younger than we are.)

We had our fun by mocking the sacred ideals held by the student body - mainly, basketball. I did attend a few games after some long study sessions, and Ana and I hit an 80s night that some frat held, but mostly it was movie watching and subversion. This was helped greatly by Clark's hearse. We even threw our own party, but people only danced to crappy hip-hop. The road trip to New Orleans was classic, though, and after we graduated, I still lived in the area and kept hanging out with the Dudez. I even flew to see Ana and Morrissey and learned to ski! When Holger did a semester abroad in Argentina, we flew down to meet him during his break. And when they finally all graduated, we had a European tour. Good times.

I fell out of touch after moving out west, but Facebook means you sort of know who's married and who has a kid. So this weekend, I finally got to meet Ana's long-term boyfriend (and baby-daddy), Joseph. So this Saturday, we woke up early, showered, put on our finery for their wedding, and drove to a nature preserve in Oakland. (All relevant pics here.) Ana had come out looking at UW for graduate school, but instead she went to Vermont. Another life-changing moment, as she met Joseph there! The man who introduced them, Benjy, chatted with Reg while I put Ana's makeup on. They had already had a proper ceremony in Croatia, but this legal part was for his family, and well, the USA. I got to sign as a witness and all. The "ceremony"/announcement went fast, as her 18-month-old Thomas had to be held the entire time.

It was a gorgeous day, although a bit on the hot side. We were just under a ridge, which was nice and breezy, but where the wedding party sat was just low enough to get hardly any sort of breeze. So we drank lots of nice ginger limeade and hibiscus lemonade, made small talk, chatted with people we hadn't seen in years, and watched the bride and groom dance to a traditional music before the caterer finally finished grilling the meat. Everyone fell upon the food happily, as it was quite delicious. Everything was really lovely, and I was glad to see Ana happily paired off at last. I mean, she'd been happy before I saw her, but you know. Makes it real. That's what the wedding was for, I suppose, to make it real to society. And, as I tactlessly pointed out, to save their son from bastardry.

oh well, only 30 more thousand words

This is better than one long entry, right?

We got back feeling rather exhausted, and chilled, since the weather in Oakland was about 20F hotter than in the Mission District (it hadn't been sunny for very long either). So we put on warmer clothes, set up our tent in the backyard, and tried to relax. Steve and Ry and the kids were at the circus, so it was nice and quiet for a while. I was re-reading I, Lucifer since I'd finished all the Curse Worker books twice, as well as the other books I'd checked out from the library. I'd eaten a ton at the wedding party, so I didn't want to eat too early, but I was starting to feel weak.

I decided I needed a drink, texted Steve before remembering to check the fridge. Steve does a liquor club once a month, so I knew SOMETHING would be there, and I was rewarded with Stoli Gold. (I don't go out much, so if I do, I try to order only Stoli.) I mixed myself a drink after sipping it. Of course when Steve got home, he brought out his rye and rum collection. "I like this one, it sort of has a plastic taste."

We had dinner at Radish, a small restaurant that feels trendy yet homey. I'm not sure how they do that. Probably because the food isn't very expensive (because of small portions) and amazingly delicious. So yeah, there was that, pulled pork sandwich for me, fried chicken strips for Reg, really tasty. I showed Steve that if he checked in on Foursquare, he'd get a free beer, so that happened. (Reg and I had, this whole trip, been Foursquare/Twittering (I also had a few Tumblr posts) everywhere we went.)

Reg and I wanted to go dancing on Saturday. I figured that it being San Francisco, that wouldn't be hard to accomplish, so I asked Erik (whose LJ name I forget, along with his North Dakotan heritage) what was going on. Nothing I'd heard of, of course, but DJ Garth at Public Works back room for $5 before 11 sounded great. Unfortunately we didn't get in before 11, but what can you do? "It's a vacation," Reg kept saying, and I even paid for coat check (since it was now 55F).

Now, I haven't gone dancing since I was trying to pick up boys at Electric Tea Garden in 2009, but I've been to a lot of shows, seen a lot of DJs, big names, smaller names, there's never a guarantee that a DJ will be fantastic. DJ Garth was. He didn't play a single track I knew (which I fully anticipated), but every track made me want to dance. At 11:15pm it was still a bit of a mellow groove, which he slowly, track by track, song by song, sped up. Ninety minutes later, it was a LOT more crowded, but we found the A/C vents, and were dancing our asses off.

Just before 2am I was starting to hurt. Spending the day in the car, then dancing for the first time in three years, well. We went over to Erik's for a bit - his rental is about as amazing as Steve's place, both are classic SF townhouses - before going back to the car and driving back to Steve's. We had the rockstar parking right in front, at least, but it was so bloody cold and windy.

I had tried to get Travis to come out dancing with us, since the DJ was so sick, but he'd already gone to bed. But both he and Erik said they'd come to brunch with us. I didn't wake up till nearly 10am, which sounds late, but I fell asleep around 4am. We decided on the Pork Store, one of the few places I remember going in SF before, although I did get lost on the way. But we got there - both Travis and Erik beat us - and were seated reasonably quick. Pretty good greasy spoon fare, if you like that sort of thing, and boy, do I ever. Do. I. Ever. I caught up with Travis, tried to get him to watch Sherlock, and devoured my delicious cheesy egg sandwich and half my hashbrowns.

And that was about it for San Fran. Travis came by to check out Steve's place - they hadn't seen each other in a couple months either - and then Reg and I packed the car, hugged everyone, and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. Along with the rest of the Bay Area, apparently, it took bloody forever. The weather cleared up the second you got on the bridge, but none of the dumb tourists could see shit from it. Oh how we laughed.

I took over driving around Santa Rosa, and then we thought about staying in the Redwoods, but camping spots were $35. "We could get a hotel for $70 and shower," I exclaimed. Plus, the weather turned crap, so we stopped after about 350 miles in Eureka, CA. (Not Yreka.) Yeah, we decided to take 101 back. We figured if we weren't making good enough time on Monday, we could skip over to I-5. But for Sunday night, we got takeout Chinese (I do NOT understand how every shitty small town we stop in has better fried rice than almost anywhere outside the International District) and turned in early. (The motel was actually $67 with tax.)

the end of the journey

The pictures.

When we got up it was still really cold and gross - it actually had rained last night. Reg's back hurt, and we weren't terribly hungry, so we just packed up, had shitty motel coffee and honey bun, and left. (As an aside, I don't get how motel coffee is so awful. Usually it's like motor oil and you have to add like six little things of creamer to get it to a drinkable consistency, but this time they actually added water, so it was more like... tea.)

But seriously the coffee was doing nothing for me, so when we got to Port Orford, we stopped at a diner - it was called Paradise Cafe, but it was a diner, trust me. We were the only people at 1pm (it closed at 2pm) that weren't high school students, ok. That is the mark of a good place. I absolutely try not to stop at tourist places if I can avoid it, just like I enjoy being the only white person in Asian or Mexican places. Anthony Bourdain, I salute you again. But yeah, this food took 20 minutes and was the most delicious diner food I've tasted outside of the South. Seriously, the Pancake Corral is pretty good, but Paradise Cafe lived up to it's name, let me tell you. (It was also across from a Mormon church, oddly enough). If you're ever down the 101 that way, check it out.

Reg took over then, but he was not driving very well, so I asked if he was ok, and no, he wasn't, and then he fell asleep. So I took over, again, and god it was gorgeous, I swear as soon as we crossed the state line the clouds and fogs and mist were gone. I found this amusing, as it's the opposite on I-5. But yeah, I put on Pure Phase and Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space and drove along the Oregon coastline on US-101 and it was brilliant, I swear on J. Spaceman and Terrence McKenna, totally brilliant.

The only problem - once again - the speed limit was 55. People were generally going 60-65 unless the road was curvy at least. But, well, the road is always curvy. Spaceman kept me sane till the albums ended, at which point it was 6pm and I was going to AK every tourist I saw. Stopped at one of the last public beaches before the road to Portland. It was a lovely balmy 65F nearly all day, the wind kept it from being truly pleasant, but really, I couldn't have asked for much more out of that day, aside from no idiots on the road. Unfortunately we started hitting more populous areas at 5pm - rush hour. I was really getting pissed off by the time we took 18 to Portland. It seemed like people were driving even slower than they had on 101.

Reg woke up a bit, but not enough to drive. He put on some hip-hop, and that got us almost to I-5. I bought some cloves just before the exit, for $5.35. I was very excited. Of course Reg's normal Camels were $4.30. Boy, it's a good thing we don't live in Oregon. I guess the income tax would kill us. (OR has no sales tax, but does have income tax, and the reverse is true of WA.) I played my favorite remix of "Somebody That I Used To Know" and some other mixes to get us out of Portland and into oh wonderful 70mph WASHINGTON. I stopped to pee in Woodland, and decided it was time for Butt Rock.

(If you haven't seen Hesher or are wondering what Butt Rock is, think Skid Row and Guns'n'Roses.)

The playlist began with "Don't Fear the Reaper." Then Styx - Come Sail Away, which Reg and I actually sang along rather beautifully to. Then "I Remember You", "Rag Doll", "Once Bitten Twice Shy", "Here I Go Again", "Mr. Brownstone", "Hot Girls In Love", "Good Times Bad Times", "Mother", Vanilla Fudge's "You Keep Me Hangin' On", "Paradise City", "Freebird", and "The Seeker."

And then we stopped at a rest stop after Tacoma and I told Reg that I drove over 550 miles and smoked 3 cloves and HE WAS DRIVING HOME.

He played some Eminem+late 90s crossover stuff, like, Linkin Park with Eminem, or Marilyn Manson with Eminem. Really weird, but pretty energizing.

So that was that!

And I still haven't seen Cannon Beach.