Oregon through LA

From Seattle we drove south and made our way towards the Oregon Coast (after a quick stop at Mt. St. Helens).



It was a beautiful passage down to a campground on the coast near Cannon Beach, where one has to hike down a trail with a wheelbarrow to get to the campsites.


Cannon Beach

The next day we went to the beach for a bit and then drove to Portland. We saw the rose gardens and a exhibit about chocolate in a forestry museum nearby.


Shannon smells a "Leann Rimes" (a variety of rose).


Shannon gets advice on how to prevent forest fires.

We spent the night at Fei and Pierce's. Fei just graduated from Cranbrook. They are incredibly nice and they have a very cool house. We watched David Byrne's True Stories with them.

It was then on to Corvallis, OR, where our friend (and one of my Florence flatmates) Alyssa lives with her boyfriend Matt. They showed us around town and took us out to dinner, and we watched In America with them. One of our original destinations was Alyssa and Matt's wedding in early August, but we couldn't work out having our last stop be on the west coast. But we got to hang out with them without a bunch of other people around, so it worked out very well.



We made our way southeast to Crater Lake, then drove for quite a while until we got to southern Oregon, nearly to the border. We camped that night right outside Oregon Cave.



The next morning we took a tour of the cave, then drove into California bound for San Francisco.



We stopped to see the redwoods, which were awesome. We got to SF that night, arriving at Ted (my brother) and Lorri's not long after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. The day after we arrived they took us on a driving tour all over SF (probably all the things you can think of off the top of your head), and dropped us off in the Haight so we could do some shopping and see the shell of hippie central. I was impressed by Amoeba Records, whose selection is as large as a Virgin megastore but so much cooler. I bought Mark Eitzel's Songs of Love because he is sort of from both Columbus and San Francisco, and he's the only person I'd heard about Amoeba from. There were other cool stores (including one devoted to vinyl toys of cartoon characters and some real people like Andy Warhol). Ted and Lorri took us to dinner at a lovely seafood restaurant (McCormick & Koleto's) and then for ice cream at Ghirardelli.



Our hosts were headed for Italy the next morning for a wedding (I drove them to the airport), but they graciously let us stay in their place. Shannon and I drove towards Fishermans Wharf, but parking was sort of a problem so we ended up going back to the apartment. We tried out the bus system and made our way downtown, had gnocchi at an Italian restaurant, and went to the bookstore City Lights.



The next day we went to the Gay Pride Parade downtown, then went up to walk along Fishermans Wharf (on a trolley part of the way). We took a bus to Golden Gate Bride and walked across it and back. Then we called it a day and headed "home". I think that day I watched Big Fish on video.

We went downtown again to the SFMOMA, which had a nice collection. They had a room devoted to one of William Kentridge's recent animations (which was amazing). He makes the animations by making a drawing, then erasing and redrawing on the same drawing to make the next frame - so the result is that the echo of the erased drawing is still visible as the scene changes.

We also looked for the cartoon art museum, but it was closed that day (Monday). So we got tickets for Farenheit 9/11 instead, and waited in a line that stretched 100 yards or more since it wound up a staircase past where I could see. It was good, and cool to be in a place where the audience is really into it.

The next day we made it to the cartoon art museum, which was pretty good. It had a big section on Raggedy Ann, whose creator was a San Franciscan. Then we went back to Fishermans Wharf, had some In-n-Out burgers, and took a tour of Alcatraz.




Wednesday we took off on Highway 1 along the coast. Absolutely beautiful the whole way down. We stopped in Monteray to see the aquarium, which was amazing. That night we camped at a state campground on the highway near San Simeon.



The next day we took a tour of the Hearst castle, which was impressive.


Hearst's indoor pool

We kept driving onto LA and got stuck in rush hour traffic for a couple hours, then made it to the neighborhood of Shannon's friend from St. Kate's, Kim and her boyfriend David. First we had dinner, then got to their house a little before they did, so we let ourselves in. They were, like everyone we've stayed with on this trip, incredibly generous. Especially with all kinds of food, yum. Their 10-month old daughter Madeleine provided endless entertainment, and she knew it.



Our first day in LA we went to the Museum of Neon Art, which was small but pretty cool.



Then to the Japanese American Museum, which focused mainly on the American concentration camps during WWII but also had stuff about Japanese American life since the 1800s. There was also a new exhibit about 9/11, which had artifacts from that day, and multimedia presentations. It's strange to see bits of metal and plastic displayed in a museum like art objects, but I guess there's no other way to present them.



Saturday we visited the La Brea Tar Pits and accompanying museum, which housed some amazing complete skeletons of prehistoric creatures like saber-tooth cats, giant sloths, and wooly mammoths. Then we went to Hollywood, walked on the stars and saw the Chinese Theatre. We went to a small museum that had lots of movie and tv artifacts and an audience-participation Foley studio demonstration.



Then we went to dinner and waited around for a while before going to the Silent Movie Theater. It was a two-part evening: first, Janet Kline and her Parlour Boys, who perform songs from the 10s, 20s, and 30s; second, three of Buster Keaton's short films. They served overpriced hot chocolate and cookies during intermission, but it was a really fun night overall.

On the 4th we lazed around at Kim and David's till the afternoon, when we went with them to David's parents' house a few miles away. (They let me drive their Mini Cooper over there.) It was a really amazing house. Kim, Shannon, and I were the only non-Chinese people there (Kim is Vietnamese), which made me feel refreshingly out of place. The food was delicious. Shannon and I had a long conversation about politics with one of David's uncles who went to school in Minneapolis. We watched all the LA suburbs' fireworks from our view on the hill. It was really a fantastic and unique Independence Day.

Monday was our last full day in LA, but we didn't do much. We went to the UCLA campus and walked around a bit, but mostly things were closed for the holiday. Then we went over to Rodeo Dr. and drove up it. Then we found the Hollywood sign.

On Tuesday we left for San Diego, which I'll write about later since this is such a long post.