Malibu

One thing you won't be hearing from us is the lame apology most small-time bloggers give when they haven't been blogging for a while. As if they weren't giving this stuff away for free anyway. We've been home for three weeks now, which puts the blog 6 or 7 weeks behind, and you can eat it grunge-bag. We haven't FELT like blogging. Here's your GD next post. :)

We were finally on our way out of the black hole of over-saturated California-ness that is the LA area, though we wouldn't get too far that day. I wanted to stop in Malibu to, of course, surf. There wasn't much swell when we got there in the late afternoon, so I convinced Michelle that we had to sleep in the area that night so I could try in the early morning.




We stood on a cliff and took these shots. We did a crappy job, though, 'cause it was much nicer being up there than it is to look at these photos. I asked Michelle to pose for one of our "I stand on the right side of the frame, she stands on the left, I hold the camera, she buries her face in my shoulder so as to hide her face, and I try to not make my neck look fat" pictures, but she said she was feeling too ugly and vehemently refused. It had been a rough couple nights.


Duke Kahanamoku is credited with bringing the sport of surfing to the mainstream. It's tough to beat old pictures of him. Whoever's in charge of his licensing agreements, though, could be doing a better job. That night we ate at "Duke's Barefoot Bar" in the 'Bu - annoying nickname which Michelle and I made fun of quite a bit. It's a pretty crummy but not terrible chain of restaurants in California and Hawaii. We ate a giant pile of nachos, drank some Hawaiian beer (Primo, it was watery piss beer, terrible) and got a tip from the bartender (he was from New Hampshire! We got free dessert!) on where to park the van that night to sleep. It was a nice dark side road next to a park. Not a bad night's sleep.


I got up early the next day and drove the van down to the pier to check the surf, with Michelle and Freddie still sprawled out on the bed. It was foggy and a bit yucks out in the water so we parked and went back to sleep, waiting for the sun to get up a little higher. We awoke to a Japanese man puking on our van. Yep. Puking right on our van. The tire, to be fair, and he did actually come back with a bottle of water to wash it off. Asians. Bad things happen when you hide in a car so well that it occurs to no one that there might actually be someone in there.


The picture above is Surfrider Beach. I mean, I guess that's what it's called. I never actually heard anyone use that name. Or maybe I did but forgot 'cause it's a pretty stupid name. You can see how the waves rather famously break at three different points. Super long rides. A little piece of surf history there. Cool. I went out and surfed terribly. It was intimidating being there and all the guys were pretty aggro. Oh well, next time.


Michelle took some pictures of some dying sea life! Apparently she tried to snap a photo of all the surfboards and other surfy looking things accumulating on the beach throughout the morning, but even those dudes were sorta aggro, so no go. Maybe it was just my secret optimism and naiveté, or maybe it was all the beach/surf movies from the 60s and 70s, but I think I imagined Malibu being a little friendlier. Too rich, too cranky. But that's just our passing, one day and a half snap judgment, what do we know?

Up the coast

Not having driven up the California coast before, I think our expectations were more on the side of scenic and sunny rather slow and trying. There were just too many places to stop, too many surf spots to check, and too little places to park the van for the night. That may sound like a complaint, and maybe it is, but keep in mind we had been on the road for 6 or 7 weeks at this point. We got punched in the face with so much gorgeous landscape and coastline that this turned into the part of the trip where we started going numb. Again, I sound pretty negative but I prefer to paint the whole picture. Really, the coast was incredibly amazing, so pretty, blah blah, good work California you win the prize.


For (my) silly business reasons, we had to hang around the outskirts of LA for another night. Another absurd night. We drove to Santa Monica, took advantage of happy hour, and decided there was nothing in town we wanted to eat. As lots of people have, Michelle and I had heard about the Kogi Korean BBQ to-go truck, on the Food Network or the Travel Channel, which parks itself among the other trucks in Venice. So we drove back over to Venice. There were this many people there. Plus a million more on the street. Too. Much.


Short rib burrito, spicy pork tacos, kimchi quesadilla, 4 Kogi sliders, grape Crush. Too. Much. Everything was so delicious. Juicy, spicy, hand-held. Perfect. Really some of the best food we had.

We drove BACK to Santa Monica that night for sleepy time. After some argument and a much too long trip out to an unwelcoming Home Depot parking lot, we settled on parking in a street spot in front of a church. We figured the church will either be super quiet at night, or crazies will be milling about. I'll let you guess which circumstance we encountered. After parking, of course, Michelle had to pee. Back onto the street for a bathroom search, with brand new results this time: a 24 hour FedEx/Kinkos. Awesome.

This is the photo you're getting of the Santa Monica Pier and you'll like it, suckers.



We had to be BACK in Venice by lunch - I told you our time here was a bit absurd - but we had time in the morning to walk through the farmers' market near the promenade. It's California, so of course it was absolutely lovely. Also, we saw Molly Ringwald. She signed our book. Just kidding we don't have a book. These guys above were slinging raw oysters so oooobviously Michelle and I had to partake, as we are oyster fiends. We were not disappointed as we may have been in Louisiana.

A bit more running around, a discussion as to whether we're making a huge mistake and should we get on a plane and go home... a decision to keep going, then back on Route 1.

Los Angeles Part 2

The next day we woke up, still stuffed with ramen and followed Christina to the Griffith Observatory for a "hike."

In New England, a hike is involved and means you have boots and walking sticks and energy bars. In California, it's a walk up a hill that you can do in flip flops. Oh California, why are you so awesome.




We got home, quite dusty, and before we knew it, it was time to get on the road again. We thanked Jon & Christina for their hospitality and did some last minute sightseeing.

We first decided to go to the LA MOCA, which turned out to be in the neighborhood of one of Jon's recommendations - Wurstkuche.



We got a rattlesnake & rabbit (with jalapenos) and a duck & bacon. Both sausages came with grilled onions and peppers on the side and your choice of condiments. We also split the delicious fries with special dipping sauces.


After eating wayyy too much we checked out the MOCA. It's a smallish museum with a few different branches but a lot of great work by California artists. You should definitely check it out if you are in the area, but in my opinion, not enough Ruscha.

Now, to make it up the coast!

Los Angeles Part 1

LA is another one of those towns that people either love or they hate. I've wavered between the two, going from love to hate, and now finally, to the thought that it's great for a visit, but that I'm not a "lifer," as they say.

Our host was the awesome and magnificent Jon Lee, who I've known since college through my attempts to become more culturally aware. The best part about hanging out with Jon in his town is that he knows the delish food spots.

We got in late and Jon whisked us to a great Korean place, of which no pictures exist, because we demolished the food - some short ribs, some delicious fish, which I can't recall the name of right now (mackerel?), and of course the requisite small plates that you get with the meal (if I were a more Asian Asian, perhaps I would know the name to these, regardless, they included kimchi). We stopped for dessert in Chinatown, where we got a tapioca drink, a Mango shaved ice, and through some weird English translation (red bean rice balls), a giant bowl of hot red bean soup with these sweet rice balls in it filled with black sesame. Our first bowl came with a hair in it, but don't worry, the second one was all clean.

The next day, on Christina's tip, we went to Silverlake to get coffee at Intelligentsia. All barbs at hipsters aside, these baristas know how to make some delicious coffee. We then met Jon and Anna (just in from Oakland) for lunch at Porto's in Burbank, which is this insanely gigantic Cuban bakery and eatery. Between the four of us, we split potato balls, a tamale, a Cuban sandwich, a roast pork sandwich, a giant salad with supplemental Tapatio hot sauce as dressing, and even though Jon claimed to have "restrained" himself, like half a dozen cheese rolls and various other baked goods. Needless to say, we were stuffed after that.

Timmy and I then checked out Chuck Jones:An Animator's Life from A to Z-Z-Z-Z at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A lot of amazing backgrounds and original sketches were there and it was really great. Plenty of old cartoons that you would certainly remember if you saw the storyboards. No pictures were allowed, unfortunately.

Then, in true LA fashion, we did some shopping, checking out various furniture and design stores, and the giant Opening Ceremony after being shut down at Huntington Gardens, who had run out of tickets for the day

We headed back to Jon's where hours flew by because we were mesmerized by the Mall Cops show on TLC. Before we knew it, it was late and we were hungryyyyyy. We decided to go to Daikokuya, which Jon said is one of the best ramen joints in LA. It was like 9 pm on a Tuesday and we figured that it wouldn't be crowded... totally wrong. We get there and they tell us it's going to be an hour and a half for a table of four. Bummer. So we instead go to another ramen place in Japantown with decent ramen and delicious fried rice. As we are sitting in this ramen joint, Jon says that we should go back to Daikokuya. Basically, all of us called the idea stupid and then immediately started thinking about going. So we get back to Daiko and our names are at the top of the list. What else would we do? So they called our name and we went inside to get our second batch of ramen in less than an hour.


MMMMMMMMM


Notice the only person to look upset at all that ramen is Tim. Happy and wayyyy too full, we went home, where I got to see my old junior high friend Kiran for a few minutes.

The Road to LA

One bad thing about having a legit place to stay at night is that we seem to be more slow in the mornings, since we don't have to stealth pack and quickly find a place to pee. That was the case the morning we left San Mateo and started heading to my favorite creeper's (Jon Lee) city of residence (Los Angeles).

We stopped in San Clemente (questionably; we don't remember) for lunch and some internetting at our favorite chain for reliable wifi, Starbucks. If you know us, you know we looooove Mexican food and we picked the place that had no English menu and a line at 11am. I got my usual, lengua, and we think Tim had carne asada. We rounded out our solid lunch selections with giant horchatas and a cheese quesadilla.



Aghhh so delicious. We need a place like this in NH. I mean, I love me some Chipotle but let's be forreal here...

So after lunch we started driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, which meant we hit all the big beach towns - Laguna, Newport, Huntington. Unfortunately for Tim, it was super windy and there was no surfing to be had in these surftowns. Sorry Timmy.

We did take Fred, who often just stays in the van all day while we run about, to the Huntington dog beach. We've mentioned this a million times, but Fred loves the beach. There was no exception to this one, which is an awesome beach, filled with people hanging out with their pups and enjoying the surf. Here's another standard picture of Fred on a beach.


After that, we stopped at a few awesome surf shops, which is one part of Tim's surf love that I wholeheartedly support. We had to visit the classic Katin surf shop, obvi. Katin is the company that basically invented board shorts (as we know them) in the late 50s. They are made of heavy canvas and pretty good looking. We also stopped by Seal Beach to visit Harbour, who made Tim's yellow longboard. If we had a million dollars, Tim would have bought out the whole store.

After speaking to Jon, he let us know that we should stay there to wait out that infamous LA traffic, so we stayed for some drinks and apps at 320 Main, where their cocktail schtick is pre-Prohibition drinks. I had an Old Fashioned and Tim had a Moscow Mule served in an awesome copper mug. They have awesome ice cubes (does that sound weird?) and the biggest collection of bitters I've ever seen. Delicious.

Now, off to our LA adventures!

Camping in San Mateo, surfing at San O'

Our jaunt through Las Vegas set us off course for San Diego. Not wanting to drive quite that far south just to drive up again, I picked a surf spot I always wanted to paddle out at but never got the chance, San O, and made that our destination.


It doesn't look like much, June gloom is a real thing in California, but I had a pretty fun surf here.


Freddie's leash is secured under one of those rocks. That was enough to keep him in one place. He was welcomed to the California coast, though, by being attacked by a guy's small, recently acquired rescue dog. Freddie was pretty bummed and spent the rest of our stay on this beach in the van.


There are a handful of campgrounds in the area and we found an open slot in San Mateo. While this is not the first time we parked at a campground, it would mark the first time in the trip that we started our own campfire.


As foreign to us as the gambling and sexual debauchery of Las Vegas is the casual camper's lifestyle. We've gotten pretty good at stealthily parking in dark areas of parking lots and confidently walking to the back of restaurants to use their restroom without purchasing a crumb of food, but sleeping in the dirt and sharing a coin operated shower with hundreds of RVing Americans is just not our cup of tea. On this particular night, however, we got the urge to at least mildly participate. So we bought a log bundle from the campground toll booth, picked up the classic hot dog and s'more ingredients and set about lighting some shit on fire.



I had done laundry at the Ace before we left but I don't like putting my white tees in the dryer. This is what a crazy person's clothesline might look like.


We accidentally and very stupidly left our food out overnight. The forest critters ate all of our chocolate and some Doritos. This giant bird came back for breakfast.

We checked the surf again in the morning. I decided to pass and we started driving north to LA.

Palm Springs (honeymoon)

There's a certain amount of pressure one puts on oneself to discover new things at every moment during exploratory traveling and this can be an extremely exhausting prospect. We decided to give ourselves a break from the exploration and celebrate our 2 day old marriage in Palm Springs. We stayed at the Ace Hotel. We left the hotel two times for one very specific thing, to get new brakes on the van. The rest of our two night / two day stay there was spent at the hotel restaurant, the hotel bar, the hotel pool, and inside the hotel room with hotel room service. It was absolutely lovely. Below is the lone picture taken poolside in Palm Springs with my cell phone.


We did not buy any Ace sneakers or Ace board shorts or Ace screen prints of the Ace Hotel. Lots of other guests seemed to be in a buying mood, though. You guys are pretty cool.

Also, Michelle took these pretty great photos of the wind farms on the way to Palm Springs.



See you suckers in San Onofre.