Autumn-esque
Hallo hallo! Don't ya just love fall? Not because of pumpkin patches or apple cider or anything—just the the colors and the drama with the weathers and stuff. Time is marked by the first time you turn your heat on for the year, which was yesterday, and the first time you make a fire in the fireplace—also yesterday.
We went out to the Manzanita this weekend for Lance's mom's birthday and took lots of walks along the Pacific Ocean, watching the clouds roll around and the spray fly up against the rocks.
Family pic: the Normines and me (I'm the one holding the heavy pink stuffed animal that's actually a baby. Love you, Teags!).
If you're going to San Francisco.
San Francisco: Sunshine and azure skies. Row houses. Eye watering wind. Steep streets. Fast-moving fog with a life and mind of its own. Bum piss. The smell of bum piss. Thai noodle soup. Bridges over bright-blue bays. Haight and Ashbury. Patchouli. Hipsters in the park. Wine.
Fancy facades and paint jobs. So much time put into making the structure you live in look beautiful from the street. I'm backin it.
Dolores Park on a sunny Sunday. I'm used to the hipster circus at Colonel Summers Park in Portland, but this was on another level.
3rd and Army. Lance likee. Cracked one straight out of the car.
Lovely front doors in the mission—this one outside Tricia's humble abode.
The colorful alleyways of Valencia.
Sonoma Style
I flew to San Francisco, drove up into the Sonoma Valley, and slept in a pear orchard beneath the stars. I'm going to argue that, while it wasn't really camping because there was a house there with a fridge and a place to take showers, it was a style of outdoor living that I really could get used to. Outdoor kitchen, outdoor fireplace, outdoor dining area, outdoor room (AKA tent) for sleepin. Nights are tinged with chill and backed with a full cicada rhythm section.
Johnny and Barley, little buddies!
I was there to visit Lance, who's been helping Billy and Evergreen build a private backyard bowl for skatebirding. My first day in town was also the first pour day—shot crete was flying by 8:30 a.m. Instead of helping, Cathy, Marsha, and I went to the winery. I mean, right?!
My advice for wine tasting is quality over quantity. We found one really good spot, kicked down $25, and posted up for a hot afternoon. I detest champagne but drank some that was so cold, bright and sharp—it was like the festive, adult answer to a nice glass of lemonade. Then chardonnay all light and balmy, like drinking a delicate tropical breeze. Then Pinot that was, I dunno, at that point you stop thinkin and just keep sippin.
Catherine, Marsha and me—the last to leave, they had to kick us out.
In the shade of the wisteria, overlooking the vineyards—not a bad spot to be in life.
We rolled deep to the coffee spot every morning—a scooter shop with a coffee cart out front called the Scooteria. Loved everything about this.
Canyonlands Camp Out
On a whim, we stopped at Canyonlands and Moab on our way back from Colorado. This entailed camping on the rim of Dead Horse Point and swimming beneath petroglyphs in the cool, clear waters of Mill Creek. More than fun, it reminded me how exquisite and life affirming the desert can be.
Only about a half hour from Moab, Canyonlands National Park is an explosion of red and purple rock, sagebrush, dead and live pinions twisted by the wind. You come upon the canyons themselves suddenly—almost accidentally—after driving over a sprawling expanse of flat. A coupl’a Forest Service signs and then BOOM—you’re at the rim of an abyss. To watch the sun set over Canyonlands is to know light in every color of the spectrum and the most complete silence you’ve ever experienced.
Sunset over Dead Horse Point—a time for quiet introspection and feeling the vibrations of the planet.
Swimming in the shadow of red rock.
We wandered up Mill Creek Canyon in our bathing suits, diving into the river and toasting on the red rock at will.
A hand-made swimming hole with varying levels of cliff jumping, NBD.
Canylonlands camp coffee!
Down Town
It's weird when you grow up and get busy and then like three weeks'll go by and you haven't talked to your big sister. You don't feel good about it, but it does happen. Hence, during our epic road trip around the American west, Lance and I weren't about to leave Colorado without driving down to the city to see Melissa Sherowski. She cooked a miraculous pasta feast for us, and then the next morning we ate bagels at St. Marks. There was a lot of eating involved, obviously. My sister and her lady Sarah—they're the bestest. I miss them already. Family unit!!
That nice mornin light through blue bottles at St. Marks.