i'm missing san francisco a lot.
the rest of new york was a lot of fun: after exploring more of manhattan, we met up with nate and anne later in the day and visited a great beer garden and talked too much about how great san francisco really is. exploring. new experiences, i need them. so it goes.
oh yes. we all headed into lower east side for a show at the mercury lounge followed by an excursion to some creepy/hilarious bar called happy endings in smelly chinatown. oh man. allison and i rode to south brooklyn to yummy brunch the next morning with chris and jack, they were awesome at showing us around. we then met up with zack and brigham one last time and went out separate ways, weird.

philly was a non-stop surprise for me. i thought it was going to be way dirtier, scarier, and smellier (according to what most everyone had been telling us). we stayed with mia the first two nights at her classy apt west of city center. we walked a lot, ran into more familar people than expected and had a night out in downtown. over the next four days we: rode a lot (all though everything is extremely flat, so its so different) visited west philly (where i constantly had the fresh prince theme song stuck in my head) to see clark park and satellite cafe/fire house bikes, saw the philly bike church. ate amazing vegan philly cheese steaks at gianna's and govindas, added to our growing tape collection from many impressive thrift stores, visited the insanely bizarre mutter museum (filled with medical oddities) and made super good dinner with garrett and shea who were also in town with produce from the downtown market.
stayed with donovan the next two nights, a fabulous blur of bill and ted's excellent adventure on the big screen, skitching skateboards, magnum 40s, pretzel factory at midnight, surprisingly unsketchy bars, rittenhouse square, rites of spring on record, and lots of friendly, rad people. philly was a lot of fun.

after the longest, most arduous drive (ok, i'm lying. but it was long. and boring-ohio is all cornfields and i hate toll roads). we're in chicago now staying with brian, who happens to be moving in two days. we rode around last night and the skyline from lakeshore drive is incredible. today we looked at two apts in pilsen and humbolt park, rode all over chicago, scored (free!) chicago bike maps, fixed broken bikes and went out to some bar recommended by nacccs? a bunch of san francisco faces are in town and i can't wait to see more. it's humid hot here and i hope it lets up a little.

i've seemingly stopped taking pictures. i'll work on it.

huzzah, new york, new york. i haven't been here in years and had no idea what to expect. it has been crazy, crazy, crazy.

by the graciousness of a friend from santa cruz, we've been staying in williamsburg (brooklyn) in em's amazing loft space right off bedford ave while she is back in california. we arrived wednesday evening after an awesome breakfast by shea back in DC followed by a day of stressful, trafficked driving. we went out to free pbr hour (yes, it exists!) at a bar on s 6th and moved on to matches. pretty awesome to come into a town cold and meet so many new people.

yesterday we explored manhattan: amazing vegan food, strand books, central park, bleeker st, seinfeld restaurant facade, 5th ave at 5pm and cupcakes at babycakes. riding in traffic here is ultimately death-defying though. while exhilarating and skillful, also requires so much just to manuver one end of the city to another. a total trip though. after arriving back in brooklyn, chris led us out to queens for (cheap!) beer on jake's roof with a hammock (and fireworks?) and much talk of current rap and crystal-ly people.

today, the explorations took us farther south into brooklyn. sheesh, even brookyln is 4379348x larger than san francisco. &i had no idea it got so posh. prospect park was beautiful though, perfect for riding and reading and napping. finally made it over to food swings for disgustingly tasty vegan fast food. headed into manhattan to meet up with some kids at old towne bar. despite being insanely worried re: locking bikes in thief-ridden downtown, our bikes made it out whole. i just had a lot of fun riding with people who know the city well after too much map staring. we all rode back over the williamsburg bridge to visit the "peel sessions," (trick time under the bridge!) and then went along to finally visit the levvy, a much disputed bar. quite busy and loud, but still super laid back and had good vibe. chatted with even more new people, including one dude who ultra-reminded me of crossett. good times.

two more days in nyc, hopefully we'll see nate before heading out on saturday!

dc and richmond

time has been passing in bizarre patterns these last few days. we spent friday checking out a few museums down at the 'mall' in dc, riding our bikes around the city (it's so fun to ride in traffic again!) and then coincidently ran into colie, who neither of us have seen in about three years but were just talking about that morning. the world works in strange ways. we ended up going out with him and jill later on that night in adams-morgan (which was a total scene--i felt like i was back on higuera in san luis. weird) and talked until 2:30am about high school people i haven't thought about in ages.


the next morning we left bright and early to head back to richmond for best friends day--getting stuck in traffic reminiscent of la but still getting in time to meet up for the 8 mile ride out to havad lake. it was a blast to be riding through such beautiful countryside with a couple hundred kids, only to get to the water park and ultimately feel like it was punk rock spring break '08. rope swings, water slides, bands, beer and vegan tacos. way to be richmond, way to be.


we rode back into town around 8 and tried to go to a house show where ceremony and paint it black were playing, but ended up only watching part of the show as the house was so small i could only watch through the window. it was eriely like watching tv and we decided it would be better to leave for panda veg--chinese vegan food with a buffet (donuts) and had silly conversations about atom and his package and comparisons between duck sauce and dogshit (thanks garret :)

after thanking alison for putting us up for one more night, we began our trip back to dc and recuperated a bit before christina and i decided to ride down to arlington to meet up with rich for a thai dinner. it was nice to get out and ride across the bridge (even though seeing parts of georgetown reminded me a lot of the marina) and it was entertaining to hang out with rich and hear extensive stories from his running camp. ultimate lesson of the night: it's only awkward if you make it. but i kind of liked "no fronting" too.

we left arlington to go to the black cat and met up with garret for the port o'brien show. it was awesome to see all the san luis kids and they played a really fun set, too, bringing out the pots and pans for 'i woke up today' and bring some ridiculously excited girl up on stage for 'treebones' we stayed to watch bodies of water and then came back to garret's for the ultimate slumber party--they showed up at the house with a bottle of patron in hand (van citing marah carey as his inspiration) and it was just silly catching up, sharing travel stories and talking about people from back home. There were 18 people in the house last night and once we realized 10 of us were from california, it made me feel like i wasn't 3000 miles away from home.


today has just been breakfast, lots of coffee and a mini welding lesson. new york tomorrow! i'm excited.

so the swimming hole in asheville instead was a half hour drive into the most amazing forest, pisgah to sliding rock, which as it sounds, was a huge natural rock slide. we spent most of the day in the forest, exploring the river and catapulting down natural slides and looking glass falls, a huge, beautiful waterfall.





we returned to asheville with an appetite and hit up rosetta's, asheville's prime veggie restaurant which was super tasty. we finally were able to meet up with chris after, woohoo! chris and a friend of his, escorted allison and i on a short bike ride out to west asheville and then to visit their local velodrome. after some sprints and playing around, we headed back into asheville proper to check out the contra dance and hang out in town square with chris. zach, brigham and us took a trip to peruse the amazing savings dumpster and returned with our share of goodies. asheville treated us well, and co-op house had the most amazing, hospitable porch imaginable. we headed out to richmond the next morning after one last coffee at firestorms.

richmond: awesome cafes, flat and awesomely bikeable, an abundance of bikes where ever you go, and surprisingly beautiful. allison's friend mikey hooked us up with his friend alison. she lives at a combination live space/lending library called the flying brick. we spent yesterday exploring belle isle, eating amazing food at ipanema, browsing diversity thirft, chilling hard on their porch, and "finding" far too many blueberries and pluots to possibly consume. yesterday morning we also visited hollywood cemetary, this huge, epic cemetary right near alison's. allison and i headed out without brigham and zack to DC last night to meet up with garrett, with plans to return to richmond on saturday for best friends day: an epicly impressive festival of music, or so we've been told.







garrett lives in this huge co-op house with seven other people, an abundant, impressive collection of (freak) bikes, two beautiful dogs, and a feral kitten, and a huge kitchen. amazing. we cooked a huge pesto pasta dinner and then rode out to SW for DC bike polo. we met tons of: interesting/nice/bizarre/fun people and upon much encouragement, actually played a game. sheesh, i need to try my hand at polo way more often.




more more more...too much writing, not enough exploring. today: the national mall?

more...

it's been a bit long since we updated but our over-night situations have been semi-precarious, not affording us stable internet (or in new orleans, running water..) in order to do it daily.

the last few nights in austin continued to prove our already positive perspective on the city as a whole--we went out with Dave to a bar on the east side called the long branch and finally got to meet evan's friend andina at her friends' (but not without an elaborately constructed introduction that had us cracking up within 2 minutes of meeting her. awesome girl) and then soon after met up with some of evan's other friends, phil and jake who bought us a pitcher and showed us a great time, even when it began raining at 2am. The next day we poked around the art museum, checked out a cafe, picked up our newly fixed car and got free bread at whole foods from phil. We also got the chance to see "the discreet charm of the bourgeois" a luis bunel film at the paramount, a gorgeous old theatre downtown and then attend metal night at the peacock (where we were immediately told there was black&white face paint for us at the bar. fuck yes)


After hearing stories of san antonio and the previous night from brigham and zack, we left for Baton Rouge and arrived a mere 8 hours later. andy and fletcher greeted us warmly and immediately took us on a bike tour of the downtown area and we hung out on the levy of the mississippi. after purchasing food at the local winn-dixie, we realized we were locked out of the house and hung out on the porch with root beer floats and lonestar. a friend of andy and fletcher stopped to chat, telling us stories about the night of katrina and the history of baton rouge. the only downside to the night was fletcher returning home with blood on his left temple and shoulder from a bicycle accident he experienced on the way home. luckily he seemed to be okay, but was too sore in the morning to take us out on the canoe to see alligators. we wouldn't have all fit anyhow.
porch in baton rouge


the next morning was ushered in with rain, collard greens and feral kittens on the porch, which we soon left for new orleans. After driving through miles of swamp and landscape unlike any i have ever experienced before, we reached new orleans. Biking around was quite the experience, especially in the french quarter, but we soon explored a cemetery, ate many free benigets and enjoyed drinks on the porch of a fancy hotel. After these adventures, night began to fall and the place we were to stay fell through. Andy pulled through again though, and the predicament was soon resolved by his friend rachel and a certain place to stay. soon enough we were drinking on the stoop and hearing stories about the double homicide that happened earlier on her block (and the immense amount of 70s porn her friend had unearthed at his new place--but that's another story) she was just moving into a new apartment so while the place was completely unfurnished and lacked running water, it was a roof with good people and even cuter dogs.


the next day we ventured into the 9th ward, the poorest area still largely abandoned since the hurricane; it still possessed a ghost town feel and after taking a few pictures decided to venture back into downtown. We left for athens in late afternoon and after an oversight on my part that placed us in south carolina instead of east georgia, we decided the budget inn was the best option and at 1:30am posted up for a night in a town we didn't even know the name of.


this morning we came into asheville and wandered around the town, getting a very SLO/santa cruz vibe from it and lo and behold, we shortly ran into justin, lane, miriam and more santa cruz kids at a cafe chris had recommended. small world man, small world.

next on the agenda: swimming holes tomorrow and richmond on tuesday. indeed.

...more austin.

we've had fascinating run-ins with a number of people who don't believe riding is feasible or fast enough to accommodate them and their lives. today was exceptional case though. while having an extremely unfortunate miscommunication triangle between: us, the tow truck driver, and AAA (after our car over heated and proceeded to spew smoke through the a/c the night prior), we had to ride and meet the tow truck driver at a random 7-11. finally deciding on a destination that wasn't 27(!) miles away, we told the driver we would meet him there. with a look of disbelief he asked, "and you're riding, those, there?" gesturing at our bikes.
we nodded, 'duh' (right?).
"...but you're going to be way behind me then," he continued.
allison steps it up (of course), "is that a challenge? yeah, we'll beat you there." we both take off down some sketchy street the bike map says we're not suppose to ride on (although the bike map clearly isn't in sync with our definitions of steep either, so psh). he pulls past us a ways down oltorf but we catch up at a light. we both arrive at the place around the same time. he's in disbelief and puts allison on the phone with his friend cause they both just can't believe it.

yet, this is one more of many occurrences where people just don't seem understand bikes or how their not just silly toys. but so it goes, it's great to demonstrate it so well to people. plus, the car is now being taken care of (a leaking hose? a cracked radiator? we will know tomorrow if we can leave on thurs am for new orleans) which is a mega relief. at least it wasn't in the vast expanse known as west texas, phew.

austin's been great to us. we stayed at lisa's last night, this rad older punk lady brigham had meet the last time he was in austin. she let the four of us take over her room. so after swimming in her apt pool at midnight with a 12-pack of lone star (texas' pbr, essentially) we had a mega-sleep over on her floor. today after the car-ordeal, there was bizarre weather that threatened to storm all day but didn't while we visited this awesome coffee shop (bouldin creek cafe), visited the post office, the remnants of a gallery, the wheatsville food co-op and the austin nature center, we finally made it to dave's house: a friend of a friend of a friend. yet him and his roommates have already been extremely gracious and live in this awesome old 2-story on the east side and also own a sassy cat named monkey. we'll see what the night holds...

(and really! pictures to come. we're taking them, just not uploading. they call is a cliff hanger)

Austin

Our first full day in Austin proved quite eventful, full of bike riding, coffee, swimming in the town lake, record store openings, book store collectives, pizza parlors and a night at the bar.

Everyone in Austin has been ridiculously friendly: multiple people walked up to us at the record store opening to chat (we even got offered a place to crash), Zack got told he was 'beautiful' at Barton Springs and was invited to a drum circle (.....) Jeff's friend Sara hooked us up with free beer and a discount on vegan pizza and we ended up hanging out with three random guys at the Sidebar (discussing over the handlebar skids, tim and eric and the stability of the currency) There's a ton going on (free showing of Animal House tonight as well as a documentary screening on the prison system) and we might even go to a show at Emo's on Wednesday (my highschool dream!)

(side note)
As the trip goes on, I've become increasingly fascinated with all the different natural disasters that occur in each place; Budge was telling us about the monsoons that happen in Tuscon that have literally pushed cars into the tops of bridges when they flood, how they have a 'lightning pose' to break the circuit if you get struck, and Serra is required to have flood insurance, as she lives next to a dry creek bed. I can deal with earthquakes, but tornadoes? More to come as we move farther east.

pictures to come

beginning days

allison and i spent our first official night of the road trip in LA (love! pure luck) but the next morning it all truly began, as we picked up zack and brigham from the greyhound in sketchy downtown. after some fiascoes and finagling with the bike rack to leave LA, a short 7-hour drive put us into Tucson in the evening where it was still almost 100 degrees. we arrived to hang out at the end of a documentary screening at dry river, the local anarchist collective space and run into the seattle/tacoma/reno kids in marrow. budge and the unfortunately out-of-town kyle, hooked us up to stay with the kids in havoc house, who not only put us up, but fed us.
in 105 degree heat the next morning, we went out for coffee with budge and joleen, visited BICAs and their awesome staff for quite some time and then went onward to the local public pool--a nice respite and well worth the $1 entry. we picked up food from the downtown food co-op and took over havoc house kitchen to make ourselves dinner. after well needed showers, we sat outside and watched the oncoming storm. i have never sat through something like that--the lightning surrounded us and after 20 minutes--and coinciding with our departure to met budge and friends--it began to rain. luckily we didn't experience a full monsoon, but it was still quite a novelty.
we met at 'the grill' downtown for photo booth pictures and then headed to the roof of an abandoned hotel to drink beers and hang out. good times with awesome people all around. our time in tucson was short, but extremely enjoyable: we thank you for your hospitality







Tucson endorsements: lots of ice water with lime, BICAS, bug repellent, colder temperature pools, dumpstered bread with too much parma, fans, friendly kittens, and free chili.

whew. finally in Austin after: 12 hours of driving on the 10, two hours delayed via daylight savings time, lame detours, bullying huge trucks that drive over 85mph, and tiny burritos in El Paso. luckily, James' friend Serra welcomed us just the same at 1am. hopefully Austin isn't as hot tomorrow!