Lolo National Forest, Montana

This is serial killer territory.
Driving through Washington State, we had our first, and only, police encounter. I pulled over to take a picture. Yeah, I know...that's not really chill with them. But it was totally worth it; I got the shot.

Okay, so it looked way cooler in "famous painting" format.

So the cop was like, 18, but very handsome in a blond military not my type kinda way. So I lied and told him we were lost and stopped to check the directions. He told us we were on the correct road to Missola, MT (The town closest to where we planned to camp) and we went on our way. Whew! That was nice of him to pull over to make sure we were alright. So, through Washington, it was more plains like, then got very forest-y as we drove though Montana. Not much to speak of. We stopped for gas along the way in an adorable historical mining town. The kind of town that had a main street, a few stop signs, and a stop light. Not one, but two ATV's pulled into to fill up while we were getting gas. And some old lady from Florida asked for directions, and I had to explain that we are sooooo not the people to ask. So then we went on our merry little way to the Rock Creek State Park Campground, which was 14 miles down a dirt road. Now, I had been on dirt roads already on this trip, in OKC. I have also been on dirt roads at summer camp. Other than that, this was new to me. And to my car. So, first as were driving along we come across a very normal looking family fishing. We ask them if they know of a state park at the end of the road, and they have no idea. So we keep driving, and come across many signs for campgrounds and recreation areas, but none for our campground. So were drivin' drivin' drivin'. And we start to see these very Texas Chainsaw Massacre style houses. It was just so desolate. Lots of No trespassing signs, lots of trailers, lots of broken down cars. The other side was a different story I felt like they were all the houses of GW and Dick Cheney's friends. Very nice ranches with elaborate entrances....and more No Trespassing signs. So we drove and drove and drove and drove (it seemed like forever because with my car and those roads we couldn't really break 15mph). When we finally got there, the campground was adorable. Many of the other campers looked serial killer-esque, and it was 85% dark by the time we got there. This was, I believe, our longest drive, and the latest arrival at a campground. It was very tricky, but we had enough practice at this point that we collaborated on the effort pretty well. I started making dinner, he started collecting firewood and setting up the tent. We found that the site was very, very, small and uneven. Maybe that's why it was the last one available. I was too scared of the other campers to go wash my dishes, so I just put them in the car. Ugh. I kept hearing weird noises in the woods, which may have been deer, squirrels, or serial killers. Who knows. Unfortunately, we were so motivated to not deal with this late night set up again the next night that we didn't really get a chance to experience this campground. We woke up, took a picture of the creek, scarfed down a cereal bar, and bounced.

Seattle, WA

So, Seattle. In Seattle, we stayed with my awesome friend Courtney. I've known Court since Middle School, so we go way back. She moved to Seattle a few years ago, so I was super exited a, to have somewhere to stay, and b, that we got to party! As we drove into Seattle (well, a few hours before) we were amazed by the mountains. My poor geography here ended up embarrassing me once we got there and talked to Court about the mountains. Grand Teton and Mt.Rainer are pretty important. Check out how pretty it was simply to get gas up here:

So, the drive. First, mountains. Wow. That one may or may not be in No.Cal., but it is a mountain and we did see it on our drive up. So then we get to Portland. I have never been so happy to be stuck in traffic. We loved the rivers, the bridges, all that Pittsburgh-esque crap. And we knew that historically, its an uberhip city. What we heard from Court and the other Seattleans(...Seattlites? "Seattle residents are known as Seattleites." Thank you, wikipedia.) was that it is too hip for most. I think she might be right. I don't like being in a city where everyone thinks they're the coolest. But, who knows. That might just be a related (not sure if you could count them as sister cities....I think Vancouver is Seattle's sister and Portland is maybe their cousin). Anyway, so the traffic finally lets up and were on our way into Seattle. Courtney lives right outside the city in a town called Lake City. She has the most incredible view of anyone that I know from her sweet apartment:

However, Wiki says: Despite the presence of many other businesses and public art displays, many outside of the area think of Lake City only in terms of its many used car dealerships.
Poor Lake City.
Please excuse the crappy quality of photos. Unfortunately, this is when I realized that I no longer had my camera charger, and thus could no longer take any pictures. How I forgot this is beyond me. It's not Boyf's fault that his photos are horrible by my photo-snob standards. It's about 7+ years old my my estimate, and has something like 3megapixels. Oh well. At least we were still able to document the rest of the trip, even if they're not really frame worthy.
So, Seattle. Sweet view, good people. Then we went downtown, where I saw more good people. Good, wasted people. Not sure if we were just in the drunkards part of town or there was some kind of holiday that we didn't know about, but we got into town for dinner around 7pm and 90% of those we encountered were wasted. There were drunkards out on the patio, drunkards in the Thai food/bar establishment, homeless looking street performer type drunkards, and I'm not sure what our waitress was up to. She was just....spacey. However, all of these folks were harmless. We even saw one girl who swear to god, looked exactly like Britney Spears when she had those horrible hair plugs after she shaved her head. It was other worldly. The Thai food, by the way, was amazing. But, I had a hard time finishing it. Why you asked? Well, apparently there are about 2 weeks out of the year that it hits above 90 in Seattle. We had come at exactly that time. So, a city that only really truly needs A/C 2 weeks out of the year tends not to install it in many of the common establishments. Thai curry+ hot hot heat+ hot hot food= difficulties. I tried my hardest to look up where this place was, but definitively, I cant be sure. I used cash apparently, so its not on my credit card statement. Our next stop, The Whiskey Bar, is. What a great spot. I had a whiskey ginger and some kind of awesome cucumber whiskey beverage. So yum. And the bartender was amazing. So personalable, and he even hooked us up a bit with the bill n'at. Such a sweetheart. Then, we walked back and Court drove us back to her place, where we read her amazing coffee table books and went to bed. In the mornin', she made us eggs, explained to us what a Banannagram was, and sent us on our merry way. We had a great time with Court and chillin' in Seattle in general.
Next stop: Lolo, Montana. YEEEEEE HAWWWWW

I'm workin' on it, aight!?!?!?

Please allow me to share some random UNTOUCHED UNCROPPED photos to tell you I'm working on SOMETHING. Well chica, if they aint photoshopped or cropped or nothin, what have you been working on?!?!
I apparently haven't uploaded, organized, or posted (facebook, blog) any pictures since Fall, 2009. I'm a horrible person. A horrible person who has over 3000 pictures to sort through. UGH!

Crater Lake, OR

I could describe this whole experience in three facts, good and bad.
1.Crater Lake National Park contains the most mosquitoes in one place I’ve ever seen.
2.It is without a doubt the most beautiful lake, possibly most beautiful body of water, I’ve ever seen.
3.There is snow on the ground in much of the park.
I’ll give you a second. Mosquitoes and snow. Yes, I didn’t know how to process that either. I guess it snows hundreds of feet there, and takes all summer to melt. As the snow melts, there’s standing water, and the mosquitoes have a field day. These mosquitoes were otherworldly. We covered ourselves in DEET and wore head to toe clothing; they didn’t care. We sat around a fire; they didn’t care. We sprayed DEET directly into their stupid faces and they only like, sort of dodged us for a minute.
So, cooking and eating was the most difficult. I needed to walk around in circles/pacing like an idiot to keep them off my food. I DO NOT want to eat a mosquito. So gross. We tried to play iPhone poker and sit around the fire, but that sucked. We narrowly avoided letting any bugs into the tent and just camped out in there to avoid them.
The next morning, we packed up and went to go see the lake. As beautiful as it was, with all the mosqiutos around, we really wernt looking to stay for any recreational activities. We took a ton of pictures, then drove off toward Seattle.
PS, Oregon overall, as a state, was so beautiful.

Napa Valley

Forget San Francisco. We had been there before, and didn’t have reservations of any kind. Im not sure why we weren’t able to find someone to couchsurf with, but we (Boyf) couldn’t. Driving through Napa was beautiful. We had been there before as well (spent nine days in the bay area about 3 years ago). However, we had much more time then, and a wine tour booked. So, we set up camp in Bothe- Napa State Park. I made cheese and trees (macaroni and cheese with broccoli florettes). It was delish. Then we chilled out, drew/wrote postcards, played iPhone poker and went to bed. No wine tour: ( When we woke up the next day, as much as we (read: I) wanted to chill in wineries all day and take the Napa train, we had to drive to Crater Lake. L.A. and Napa were the only two places so far that I was really sad we didn’t have more time for. We will definitely be doing another west coast tour soon to accommodate more beach time, more L.A. party time, Hollywood, San Francisco, Santa Cruz/San Jose, Napa…..who knows what we’ll want to repeat/make room for next time as we go north.

Day 2, L.A.

We woke up, ate Boyf’s friend’s AMAZING pancakes, and got ready to hear out to the beaches. We had such a great time; I just wish we had more of it! First we checked out downtown Santa Monica, where parking is FREE in a garage (I seriously thought it was a trick of sorts. Pennsylvania parking is never really free. I learned that there was one small catch; after 2 hours, its $1/hour (or half hour, I forget.)
My first stop was Forever21, as a desperately needed a new pair of sunglasses. Mine were bent, the one lens kept falling out, and they were men’s (I walked off with some guys sunglasses in Atlantic City as a result of a Bachelorette party dare….I then lost my cool fake Ray-Bans right before the trip). So sunglasses (and nail polish…and a headband…), check. Everyone there was mega fashionable. I guess when you’re competing in the same town as movie stars, things get extreme. So, with my fly new accessories, beach blanket, Boyf, and Boyf’s friend, we hit the beach. It was a long walk (extreme even by Wildwood standards) but once we got there it was really relaxing after all this driving to just lay in the sun. I even went in the water and got my hair wet (a little…), which is very out of character. We chilled on the beach for an hour or so, then headed back to the car. Venice Beach was the next stop, which was difficult to process. It was accurately described as the Coney Island or the west coast. I’ve never been to Coney Island, but Wildwood, NJ is pretty similar minus all the street performers and the weed shops on the boardwalk (yes, like, as in, come on in and buy some grass….if you have a prescription card). So…after seeing the sights we stepped into this DELICIOUS pub on a side street. I had an amazing chicken sandwich, I forget what the boys had but we were all pretty damn impressed with the food and the service. I love how I didn’t save receipts from these places and now have no idea what their called…Google, your not helping. Anyone whose familiar with Venice, it’s the one with a wooden kayak of sorts on the ceiling…does that help?
We were told that this (Venice Beach, not necessarily this pub in particular) was the placed to get trashed if you wanted to see the wasted side of L.A., but waaaayyy too early for that. We headed back “home” to change and chill. Then, we went over to the couple’s house that we had hung out with the first night with the grilled goodness. I don’t know if I mentioned before, but the guy is going to school for cosmetology and the girlfriend is a cabaret singer and actress. They were a great bunch of people; very sweet, very fun. We somehow ended up getting sucked in to a wrestling match (some of us more than others…. are you aware that its at least 50% a smack talking soap opera?). Once it got to be late, we went out to a few bars, one of which I remember the name of: The Speakeasy. That was a dive, and awesome. Then we went to some overpriced joint whose name I cant recall, then “home.” Good times. Tomorrow: San Francisco

Los Angeles, day 1

So, after Vegas, we headed to L.A. That was another super hot drive. However, would you believe that it was chilly as we got into L.A.? I couldn't believe it. I thought I would be rockin' a bikini top and short shorts, but found myself in jeans and a hoodie.
Tangent: the diner/ cocktail lounge in Vegas was called Fireside Lounge
http://www.peppermilllasvegas.com/lounge/
And, I failed to mention the amazing pool at the hotel. Okay, it wasn't amazing like the room was, just a lovely way to finish up with Vegas before heading out on the road.
Resume topic: L.A.


We drove down to L.A., and were amazed at how many huge Casinos were on the outskirts of town. Moreso, we couldn't believe all the new construction that was not even occupied yet. We saw entire strip malls and office complexes that were newly built but vacant. We just don't get like, who pays for that and why they wouldn't just wait until they had a prospective tenant, but I'm assuming that the economy there is just expanding like whoa. I know that they're recruiting teachers like mad with huge signing bonuses and decent salaries. I guess when everyone comes to Vegas with the intension of flushing their cash down the toilet that they can afford to build whatever they damn please.
So, we arrived in L.A. and Boyf's friend had already begun grilling for us. His friend and his girlfriend came over, and it was super nice to be able to just chill n'grill for a bit. Then, we drove down through Manhattan Beach, where everyone seemed to think they were in an episode of The Hills or The Real World. Then we ended up at some beach, and while I realize Manitoba is in Canada, the name of the beach sounded something like that. We caught the tail end of the fireworks on someones rooftop house party. It was a pretty awesome view! Then we walked down to the beach and went back to Boyf's friends house in Santa Barbara to crash for the night.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Whatever happens in Vegas...

I believe I left off with Vegas? I have had very very minimal service recently; we've been driving through some pretty remote areas. So, Vegas. Minorly disappointing in the general sense. Except for this.


Yes, that's our baller upgraded mega suite. That cost us, as previously mentioned, a mere hundred dollars. Allow me to show you the bathroom.


I would live there. It's significantly bigger than my whole apartment, which is about the size of a regular hotel suite at like a Holiday Inn. Damn.

So, actual Vegas...we either didn't find the cool parts of Vegas or that weekend was just very tourist-y or what, but we were bored, quite frankly. Here were the available entertainment opportunities that we came across:
Shopping (souvenirs and mall shops)
Gambling (duh)
Getting tattoos or piercings
Eating
Sitting in traffic (oh joy!)
Walking at an incredibly slow pace behind children and old people
Clubbing (velvet rope type establishments)
Get married (not the time nor place)

Now, while Boyf and I like to party, I think we have collectively decided that Vegas is simply not how we roll. We have no tattoos. Neither of us have or desire to gamble, ever. I've only been to a club where I had to wait in line to enter maybe a handful of times, and it was never worth the time or hype. No thank you, Vegas.
Oh, and our hotel, 15 minutes from the Vegas strip, offered no mode of transportation to the action after 8pm. Who wants to have an 8pm curfew in Vegas? Fudge that. We drove down the strip, which took about 45 mins in traffic, looking and googling for anything that appealed to us, but all our options appeared to be merely a lame commercial ploy to get our money.
The only thing I wish we had done was walk down the strip to see the tacky architecture in all the casinos. Our hotel was very classic Vegas, but now they have Paris, NYC, Rome...all those themed ones. We ended up going to a diner that served cocktails and bomb dig onion rings (the name of it is escaping me....Peppermill? Peppercorn? Some compound word involving pepper). Then, we went back to the hotel. That was it. No debauchery. We saw no prostitutes, no one tried to sell us drugs, nothing. Vegas, nice try with the hangover, but even at midnight on 4th of July weekend it looked more like Disney World than Sodom & Gomorrah. Oh well- the hotel room made up for everything. Maybe next time we'll have to do more research.

Break it down

Okay, lemmie break down the itinerary so far (where we've been and how much we paid to stay where, when)

June 28th, St.Louis,MO, Boyf's cousins house, $0
June 29th, Oklahoma City, OK, Couchsurfing, $0
June 30th, Santa Rosa Lake, NM, Camping, $10
July 1st, Albuquerque, NM, Camping, $14
July 2nd, Grand Canyon, AZ, Camping, $18
July 3rd, Las Vegas, NV, Suncoast Hotel, $100
July 4th, Los Angelos, CA, Boyf's friend, $0
July 5th, ditto
July 6th, Napa Valley, CA, Camping, $35
July 7th, Crater Lake, OR, Camping, $21

I'll update the specifics on the more recent dates lickety split.

Painted Desert/Petrified National Forest and Grand Canyon

Omg. Woke up from the crappy campground (did I mention it also smelled like sewage?) and had an amazing day.
1. Painted desert was amazing. One of my books described it as a "psychedelic box of crayons dumped upside down." And then some one flung a bunch of petrified wood throughout the desert. And they're was some pretty sweet petroglyphs (rock carvings.) You drive through 28 miles of it, and I'm glad we chose not to camp there. It was hot and there was a whole bunch of sand blowing around and no shade, which is fine in the car but crappy when you have to hike a mile to your campsite. We had a great time.



2. We then drove through Arizona to the Grand Canyon. Arizona has a lot of cops and expensive gas. It is my least favorite state so far. We did see some more Route 66 crap.


I've never seen a gas pump this old school


Wigwam motel

3. We arrived at the Grand Canyon at about 6pm. The campground was very crowded, but in a "wow, this is some stellar people watching" way rather than a "get all these tourists away from me" way. We realized then that our tent is pretty balluh. It's a 5-6 person tent, but I couldn't imagine having 6ppl in there. Then we saw a 2 person tent. It looked significantly smaller than a twin bed mattress on the ground, so I'm really not sure how that works.
4. We woke up early the next morning, got Boyf a new memory card for his camera (who has 64mb memory cards anyway?) then, we had a gross, overpriced, cafeteria style breakfast (coffee, breakfast sandwich on an English muffin, dry raisin bagel= $10.25. No joke.
5. Then we took a 3 mile (round trip) hike down the canyon. It's something like 10+ miles to get to the bottom, so although it felt victorious, we saw 6 year olds and 60 year olds climb more. It is intensified by the fact that we carried lots of water and it was super hot, but we had a good time, took some beautiful photos.


Then, we made PBnJ and headed toward Vegas.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Apple Valley,United States

Albuquerque

July 1st
We decided since we had such an awesome time at santa rosa lake that we would spend the day in Albuquerque and then camp nearby. This was a poor decision; not horrible, just not great.
1. This restaurant was awesome. Boyf got French toast, I got the new Mexican omelet. Both were fabulous, the coffee was fabulous, and the service was fabulous. I'll format the link better later:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/route-66-restaurant-santa-rosa
2. Then, we drove 2 ish and a half hours to Albuquerque. First, we followed our road trippin' guide that said the Museum of Nuclear Science or Atomic History (I can't remember what the actual name was because the name, price, and location all changed between 2006 (the books publishing year) and today.) Anywho, we got there and decided that from what we saw in the lobby, it was not worth 8.50 per person. We then drove to:
3. The Pueblo Indian Cultural Center, which was very cool. The 1st floor had modern (1970- present) Indian art collections, and downstairs focused more on history and culture (artifacts, natural history type- stuff, ancient art...). We also cane just in time to see a tribal dance performance. I thought the whole thing was super cool.


3. We then drove around trying to "find the city." Unless we are seriously blind, Albuquerque is just a giant strip mall. We did get dinner, including decent ground beef for like 7 bucks.
4. Boyf saw the following description in the book. I'm paraphrasing here. "Campground on the banks of the Rio Grande 15 miles north of Albuquerque. Adobe shelters at each camp site provides shade." Sounds decent, but here's how I would describe it. "Campground managed by a miserable old couple who hates fun and youth. Adobe shelter barely fits your tent, and forget about that picnic table. Convenient to muddy swamp, casino, and highway." Nothing ruined our stay, but it was underwhelming and not what I would call serene. We had a lovely dish of Hamburger Helper and stayed up late on our semi- charged iPhones (with the highway-side locale, at least we had a clear signal). Good times



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Texas n' New Mexico

June 30th (Yes, I'm behind. Blogging in the hot car is extremely tedious.)

Since Texas, we have stayed at an amazing lake, a stinky just-off-the-highway campground, and the grand canyon. Here's how it went down, east to west:
1. Cadillac Ranch. Yes, your seeing a bunch of cars sticking out of the ground that you can "graffiti" on.





Apparently I forgot to take a picture of the actual cars on my phone; only with my digital camera. There's a lot of stuff that I wish I took more phone pictures of, or photos in general, especially of us (touristy "Here's us at the Grand Canyon" type photos.) Oh well; I'll integrate more photos once my camera is internet connected.
2.Driving through Texas, about 3 hours from Albuquerque, we still hadn't heard back from the couch surfing dude that we were supposed to meet up with. The guy finally messages us back his contact info at 8:45, well after we had checked in to Santa Rosa Lake State Park, which was aaaahhhhmazing.


We swam in the lake, chilled on the rocks,made an Indian food kit from Target, s'mores, and just wandered around. Good times! Some of the most awesome camping I've encountered. We have no idea what were doing tomorrow; staying in Albuquerque with the dude who mildly blew us off or move on to another sweet camping spot?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Interstate 15,Newberry-Baker,United States

Were driving through northern Texas right now. Allow me to recap recent events.
1. We just stopped and switched drivers at a beeeeutiful rest stop in Texas. It was so wild; within 10 minutes of crossing from OK into TX, it's just so Texas. Even though Oklahoma was super flat, Texas is somehow flatter and very ranch-ish and less praire-ish.



2. OKC was very nice! We got to see the very developed touristy section of town, then stayed the night with a new friend who drove us from city to suburb to dirt road all within a 10mi radius of one another. Dinner was subpar; overpriced drinks, long wait for the food, and cold french fries. Both of our main dishes; the buffalo chicken sandwich and tilapia were awesome, so, I'll give it a C-.





3. Anyone need knives, antiques, fireworks? Illinois is stocked with 'em. And corn. And wheat. Indiana was pretty much the same, but corn-ieer.


So, more updates later. I haven't had a charged phone or service, or I've been driving, for some time, so yes, the date of this entry should really be Wednesday, not Friday.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:County Road 13,Panhandle,United States