Lookback: You Can't Spell Portland Without IPA

I decided it was high time to capture some impressions of cities I've been visiting this year, this being a travel blog and those cities being enough of a good time that I plan to find my way back.

Is back a preposition in that case?

Anyway, here goes:

I went to Portland with what I'm beginning to think of as my West Coast Travel Team. Kelly and Erik are at the center, surrounded by me and a handful of Kelly's engineering friends (hereafter called MY friends). I met them all last year during my time in Tahoe and liked them immediately. Kelly's friends are fun, kind, and ridiculously smart when it comes to engineering (more on that a few trips below).

That gang had been gathering in cool cities for a while, as they're scattered across Reno/Tahoe, Montana, Seattle, and, now, Los Angeles. Having been lucky to catch them when they descended on the lake, I was looped in for the next adventure in Portland, Oregon. Portland had been on my shortlist of west coast cities to visit since before I even left work last July. In fact, I had intended to visit Portland from Tahoe before I, you know, looked at a map. It's far. It could have been done, but it's far.

I flew in late Thursday night after work and joined the gang at the end of a long night of festivities, including balloon animals. Actual Balloon Animals. We had a few beers to catch up, then called it a night as I was beat from the day and everyone else had essentially stayed up to see me get in.

The next morning, I woke early and went out to work on the porch of our AirBnB. Kelly had picked a real winner, with a large main room and a long table for eating and board games, all located in a great, walkable neighborhood east of the river.

Having risen so early, I got a decent day of work in before people started stirring. Once they did, a few of us walked down to Stumptown for some cold brew, which I brought back in growler form because it was available and I wanted it. I worked a while longer with my friends chatting nearby (read: playing the house's conch and didgeridoo)  and then we all piled into an Uber and hit up the Oregon Brewers Festival.

The Festival was actually one of my first true beer festivals and it did not disappoint, although I did when I failed to keep track of the beers I was trying to report back to my Druncles. The festival was held in a waterfront park, so we wandered around, played some corn hole, placed pins in an impressive map of people's hometowns, and, of course, got tipsy on craft beer.

We finally put some food in ourselves at Kell's Irish Pub, where a sea of quarters pinched in dollar bills on the ceiling caught our eye. We spent a good long while discussing the how (added magnets? added pins?) before asking for a demonstration. Our server called in a second waiter, who took our dollar and quarter, twisted them up and fired them up into the ceiling, where they stuck. We think the answer is pins.

After that, we needed a break, so we returned to the AirBNB and took a break for board games. We played some rounds of Coup and a game of Bang! that was driven indoors by wind. Then, sufficiently rested, we struck out into the neighborhood for dinner.

After we ate (at the Bagdad Theatre, I believe), we were picked up by Kevin, another former engineering classmate and Portland resident, who took us to Fred Meyer to buy more beer, more balloons for animal-making, and a kiddie pool for the next day. I specifically decided that I had had too many of Portland's fine IPAs and picked up a variety pack to mix things up a bit. Only when I got home did I learn that it was a variety pack OF IPAs. PORTLAND!

We drank beer and played games, breaking out Codenames for the first time on the trip. I had only learned the game at the beginning of the month, but I was already hooked. After an either failed or terrifically successful tutorial (I made them guess the black card in one turn), everyone else got the bug too and we played for hours, cycling the code masters around the table. Eventually, Kevin left (meeting our protestations with a mind-blowing look at the time), someone put on Rick and Morty, and we all fell asleep on the couch.

The next morning began very similarly. I woke up early to work, Kristin and I made another Stumptown run, and we had breakfast around the long dining table. The gang had climbing gym plans, but I had set up drinks with my college theatre friend Joe, so I stayed behind to get some more work done before we met.

Joe suggested the Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom, which was walkable from the house, so I retraced some of the previous night's dinner steps and met up with him and his wife Alex. Joe was a senior when I was a freshman, which through no fault of his own resulted in a pretty well-ingrained "oh, god, what does Joe think of me?" mentality that hadn't had a good chance to fade away since he graduated. Thankfully, there in Portland, that mindset was nowhere to be found. Instead, we had a nice time catching up slash doting on his puggle, Chief, who is a world-renowned internet celebrity.

After I parted ways with Joe and Alex, I Ubered to meet the post-climb group for lunch at EastBurn before we all went home and jumped in the kiddie pool. It was a tight fit for the six of us and I had Water Watcher duty assigned to me (it was an actual nametag that came with the pool...is lifeguard copyrighted?), but we made the best of it before alternating showers and heading out for the night.

That night, we were meeting Kelly's brother downtown. We got some drinks first at a bar called Hamlet(!), at which point Wes from Seattle and I had a pretty serious heart-to-heart about my journeys last year and the importance of doing your own thing. We really solved the problems of the world. Dinner came in the form of delicious pizza at Oven and Shaker, where the slices passed around ranged from a light margarita to something with a maple bacon theme.

We then went on a bit of a bar crawl. I couldn't tell you the name of the first place we stopped at, which is just as well, as it was pretty jam-packed and their cornhole bags were so thinly filled it felt like we were hucking teabags back and forth.

Ultimately, however, we landed back at Kell's Irish Pub, where we found good beers and great trad music, which is a personal favorite. I hope those guys enjoyed my scream-singing along with them through Dirty Old Town and I'll Tell Me Ma. In any case, they shut the place down (with a killer version of Mumford's "I Will Wait") and we made our way home to sleep it off.

Sunday was rough. Wes drove back to Seattle early, so we had to play man-down the rest of the day. Getting seated for breakfast at Trinket took so long that most of us just went quiet until we were called and, once inside, we opted for playing Coup until our food came because we were too beat to talk. The breakfast perked us up, however, and I suggested we haul our luggage over to the Imperial Bottle Shop, remembering from drinks with Joe that there were tables and space for our bags while we waited for our Uber.

Thus we ended the trip, sturdy beers in hand and eyes locked on a Codenames board in the middle of a hipstery bar.

Thanks, Portland.

Labor Day Trips, Part II: Wandering the Desert (and a Hasty Part III)

It was still dark when I woke up Sunday morning, as I planned to get to Big Bear early in the day and wander around until sunset. Still, feeling a little lazy, I stayed in bed a little and reached for my California guidebook. I had only made the Joshua Tree plans the night before, so I figured I should get a sense of what to see when I went there. I turned to the appropriate page and saw a long-exposure picture of one of the iconic trees ringed by stars. I read below the image that the star-gazing alone was worth the trip to Joshua Tree.

I nearly leapt out of bed. I wanted to see those stars and with Joshua Tree a few hours away and sunsets between 7 and 8, if I waited until Labor Day itself, I would be torching myself for the following workday. Big audible time, I would swap my days and save Big Bear for Monday.

I packed my camping clothes, most of which I'd bought shortly before Zion, and made a quick supply run at the grocery store for 8 liters of water and roughly as much sunscreen. With a final stop for a Coffee Bean iced coffee, I was on my way.

The drive out went from boring freeway to a rollicking road passing a legion of wind turbines in orderly rows. I replaced the prior day's Stan-Rogers-heavy playlist with more Nickel Creek and John Fahey (no relation, to my knowledge) letting the various strings tick off the miles. The morning was still quite cool when I stopped for gas, breakfast, and some Clif bars to last the day, and I immediately wished I'd thought to bring a sweatshirt. Stargazing looked to be a shivery affair.

I pulled into Yucca Valley, CA just about when another caffeine boost felt necessary, so I stopped at a surprisingly quirky cafe called Frontier. There was a communal record player against one wall with a sign asking patrons to choose some music, while the sitting areas consisted of mismatched furniture and colorful paintings by local artists. I ordered another iced coffee and a "breakfast tartine" and set about taking the previous day's pictures off of my phone. I let the time slip by as I read some more and watched folks coming in and out of the store. Other Joshua Tree visitors were obvious, whether older hikers with sun hats and trail pants or millennials with chic sunglasses and breezy tops.

Once I left, it was less than thirty minutes until I passed through the ranger station and into Joshua Tree itself. I pulled off at the first opportunity and surveyed the landscape. On either side of the two-lane road, the signature trees staggered off through great piles of boulders or up into the larger hills. Though minutes before, I had passed the outskirts of a town, the terrain inside the park felt as though there had never been towns or people. The sun beat down, casting sharp shadows in the dirt, but few of those shadows offered any respite, unless one was willing to contour one's body along with the trees.

Further into the park, I spotted some people atop another large boulder pile and decided to adventure a little myself. Pulling off, I loaded up my daypack (another last-minute purchase before Zion) with two bottles of water, the Clif bars, and extra sunscreen. Giving a side-eye to the hole-pocked ground and the thick clusters of bushes, I took the first aid kit out of my car for good measure. I set out towards the boulders, my eyes scanning the desert floor for signs of movement. If the path shrank to less than a foot between heavy brush, I looped around another way. I could still see cars by the road and a few people in the distance, but I felt alone enough to be a little TOO careful.

Once I got to the boulders, the people I spotted were gone, though I though I saw them disappear behind the next formation over. I set about scrambling up the rocks, choosing the easiest, flattest route I could find. I had made it a good 20 feet above the ground and nearly to the top when I stopped. The next rock up came up to nearly my chin and the footing I already had was little wider than my shoulders. I gauged that I could probably lift myself up onto the rock like getting out of a pool, but the margin for error seemed intense. This marked the first time of many that day that I realized that being in a desert National Park alone, while not absurd, would be a bit of a struggle. Risks I might take with a friend in tow, be they longer hikes off the road or higher climbs, couldn't be taken alone, not with the last people to see me probably forgetting about me the moment they walked out of sight.

With that in mind, I found a seat lower on the formation and gazed out over the quiet desert. Slight breezes caught the yucca leaves and rustled the dry bushes along the ground, but otherwise all was still and with the formation between me and the road, I felt pleasantly alone.

After about ten minutes, a new pair of hikes shook lose the effect and I clambered down again. More cars had gathered at the pull-off, though some people were just popping out for quick pictures with the nearby trees before speeding off along the only road. I swigged deep from my water bottle as I swung the bag into the passenger seat, figuring there would be more opportunities for slight jaunts into the park.

Opening my park guide, I decided that my next stop would be Keys View, proclaimed to be the best view in the park. The drive there took me through most of the western landmarks in the park. The trees were everywhere and in various degrees of simplicity in their structure. Some seemed built like giant slingshots with two even branches, while others were Mandelbrot sets with leaves. More and greater rock formations loomed on either side, some of which marked trailheads that ventured off the road. I felt the pang again to explore, but kept moving, driving on past campsites and turnoffs for other parts of the park.

At last, the road led back out of the center and took me west. I passed a trail that took visitors to an abandoned mine and thought not for the first time about Red Dead Redemption and the many hours I'd spent in the dusty frontier of that game. Joshua Tree put the isolation of that game to shame, however. It seemed impossible to imagine it was the same country, much less the same state, as the busy, gridlocked city of Los Angeles.

Keys View was busy in its own way when I finally crested the hill. There were about 20 cars arranged in formal parking spots that seemed almost anachronistic. The view itself turned out bittersweet. The Coachella valley yawned beneath the hills and a few glints of reflected sunlight picked out Palm Springs in the distance, but otherwise a grey haze contrasted sharp, crisp desert views I had seen in Utah last year. The phenomenon was so common, in fact, that one of the overlook signs dealt primarily with the haze and how the gap in the mountains sucks it out from the inland empire and into the Coachella valley. I left the view with a bad taste in my mouth.

As I drove away, I realized I was out of concrete ideas. It was after 12, so I ate a Clif bar while looking at the park guide. I had a very long time until sunset and stargazing, so I felt it made sense to carve out a little space for myself while supporting our parks system. With that in mind, I followed signs to the Ryan campground and pulled into site number 5. I didn't necessarily plan to set up a full shop, nor even to set up anything just yet, but I wanted to claim some space because I could foresee a late afternoon period where I was all explored out and just needed to pass some time. I paid my fee and clipped my stub to the site post with a note explaining I would be gone by sundown in case someone wanted a good lead on an available campsite later.

The park guide also recommended Ryan Mountain, a nearby out-and-back hike of about 3 miles that seemed more clearly marked on the map than some I'd seen. I drove to the trailhead, where over a dozen cars gave me confidence that I would be found given the worst. I loaded up two liters of water, my REI CampLite chair, and a Clif bar and began my ascent. Not long into the hike, I saw a couple coming down the rocky steps toward me. The young woman wore a breezy top and a broad brimmed hat, a look that I associate with Coachella for some reason. The man was shirtless, his torso a column of muscle, but when I looked up at his face, it was more rugged than I expected. As he passed, he gave a gravelly but friendly "How's it going?" It was then that I recognized him as Josh Brolin. I said hi back and continued up the stairs.

Layered stone stairs made up much of the first section of the trail before it curled right along the hill beside the parking area. From then on, it snaked along the ridge, never more than four feet wide and often with the hill dropping off on the right hand side. The desert floor fell away slowly at first, but after about 30 minutes of climbing, the piles of boulders that had towered over the roads seemed like clutter in the otherwise unbroken expanse.

As I’d hoped, I passed other groups along the way, mainly couples and very few if any children. The narrow trail made for a lot of polite waiting as one or the other took the opening to pass. As I neared an hour of climbing, a cluster of 20-somethings past by on the way down and one shouted, “Almost there, man!” I thanked him a little breathlessly and continued on.

The path topped the ridge at last and I got my first view at the valley to the south on an overlook hosting one and only one perfectly symmetrical two-branch Joshua Tree. The terrain below was a deep brown deepened by the pervasive five-o’clock shadow of the trees. People were passing each other more quietly now, panting through the final stretch. At last, I saw the small sign marking the highest altitude beside a massive manmade piled of stones. I smiled and walked up to the sign, framing it in my phone camera.

“Want a picture of yourself?” came a voice from behind me. I turned to see a man and woman in several layers of hiking gear, sitting against the bottommost stones in the pile. The woman, who had spoken, smiled broadly.

“Would you mind?”

“Not at all!” she said, nudging her husband to stand. “This is a real accomplishment!”

I love the picture that couple took of me. My smile is wide and full and very, very genuine. I loved her sentiment. The hike was an accomplishment, as was the whole day, the whole weekend. Not bad at all for a guy with no plans a few days before.

I set up the camping chair on a flat area overlooking the north and south valleys. Far below me, I could see the three-story rockpile marking my camping area, unimaginably small. A crow rode updrafts in long, lazy circles at about eye level; the same gusts crossed my face so that I could almost predict his movement as I watched. I sat for thirty minutes, just watching.

The hike down took a lot of energy out of me. Thankfully, a couple in front of me set an even enough pace that I could watch my footing and keep them at the top of my vision. At the bottom, after about another 45 minutes, I nearly dove into the trunk after a third liter of water, then sat in the car with my feet outside the car, feeling them throb in the sudden stillness.

I drove briefly in the opposite direction from the campsite, down a part of the main roads I hadn’t seen yet, but my head ached and the terrain’s repetitive simplicity began to wear me down. I doubled back and pulled into the campsite at around 2pm, ready to set myself up for a nap until a little closer to sunset.

I set up my tent (for the second time ever) and rolled out my sleeping bag. I didn’t have a sleeping pad and I didn’t feel like disturbing the stillness with an air mattress pump, so when I laid down on the bag, the hard ground below made itself known. I was tired enough, however, that I still drifted in and out of sleep for about an hour. Whenever I woke, I looked up through the tent at the blue sky and the spiked leaves of the nearest trees.

After waking for good, I brought my computer into the tent to dump a few more pictures while I hid from the sun and let a podcast or two chop away the remaining hours. With so much time left, I began to feel cranky and restless. My head ached, my eyes were tired of the bright sun, and I realized that perhaps three CLIF bars did not make a decent food supply for a day in the desert. The heat in the sunlight was oppressive, even inside the tent, and I contemplated sitting in the car for a while. As I put the computer back in the backseat, however, I noticed the long, low shadow the car threw across the edge of my campsite. More interested in shade than rest, I popped up my chair once again and sat alongside the car, reading Algorithms and soaking in any cool breeze that came by.

Cars had rolled through the campsite all day, but in the hours before sunset, the pace picked up noticeably. I began to feel bad for taking up a full campsite without intending to stay the night, so I packed up the tent with enough of a show that the next car through slowed and an Australian woman called out, “Heading out?”

I told her I was and that they were welcome to pull in and start setting up their site. When I mentioned I had just stopped for a nap before sunset, she said I was welcome to stick around a while given I was handing over the campsite, but I told her I’d head along. In truth, I wanted to be alone, too frayed and hungry to socialize with their group, no matter how friendly.

I took the driveway back out to the main road and drove back towards where I’d entered the park. I recalled a big parking lot at the turnoff for Keys View so I figured I’d move my wait there and continue reading. When I arrived, however, the gigantic rock pile alongside called my name, so I clambered up the boulders to a high seat facing the sun. Cars came and went sparingly. The wind tossed up dust and rustled the yucca leaves. I looked longingly at the higher spots, but I’d gone as far as I could with safe maneuvers and I didn’t want to start making mistakes now. This, I thought, this is where I will watch the sunset. 

 left maybe 15 minutes later. Part of the problem was the landmark itself. Called Cap Rock, it was named for the carefully balanced small boulder high atop the titanic rock that formed the base of the pile. Magnificent? Yes. Unsettling to sit beneath? Also yes. In addition, the cars that did pass all seemed to be bound for Keys View and the more I thought about it, the better the idea seemed. A broad valley view westward would be a nice way to end the day.

The view was packed when I arrived. Nearly fifty people were scattered across the rocks, their cameras set up off the paved paths. The crowd didn’t bother me, however, and I set up my chair with a podcast on, still trying to cleave time away episode by episode. The sun set right into the mountains behind Palm Springs and sent long shadows up the rifts on our side of the valley. Once it sank out of sight, a secondary murmur kicked up as a bighorn sheep ran down a nearby hill. The traffic leaving the view felt like leaving a baseball game…lines of red lights and a lot of waiting.

My next stop was a pull-off near the view, where a few other cars waited for nightfall as well. I parked beside them, put back the sunroof shade and waited. Darker colors rolled across the sky, revealing the stars one brilliant pinprick at a time. Feeling a little isolated in the park and still restless, I started the car and drove back to Cap Rock. There, the stargazing had a little more of a social contract to it. I hadn’t seen anyone moving around the previous pull-off, but here families gathered behind their cars and looked up together. There were excited murmurs from every corner of the parking lot and another car arrived every fifteen minutes or so, each switching off its lights as quickly as possible.

I set up my camp chair behind CJ and leaned back with my head on her rear bumper. I romanticize my car too much, but it did feel like a shared moment. That car has taken me from one side of the country to the other three times and has so often been the means to a better freedom and a clearer mind. As I watched, the stars came out for hours as the sunlight thinned on the horizon. The clusters were thick and deep, while the Milky Way ran across the sky unmistakably bright. I breathed quietly and smiled for about an hour as the night sky glowed, blacked out on the margins by Cap Rock and the other formations. I was glad I powered through to stay.

When I felt I had seen my fill and with an eye to being somewhat serviceable for Big Bear the next day, I got in the car and left. I stopped a few more times on the way out, pulling alongside the road I’d begun on, but ultimately I pulled out of the park and made the two hour drive back home. It was a hard drive, as I was completely exhausted, but it was absolutely worth the effort. It was an accomplishment.

-----------------

I woke up late Monday. Going to bed after Joshua Tree, I felt the kind of exhaustion you either respect or get sick ignoring. Starting late, I decided Big Bear still had to happen. I wanted my beaches, deserts, and mountains. I packed my bag again and set the GPS to a well-recommended coffee shop near the shores of the lake.

The first part of the drive felt a little like the ride back from Joshua Tree. There was an obligation to it that I hoped wouldn’t last. Thankfully, once I pulled off the freeway and the road began curving through the mountains, I got my groove back and crowed happily with every hairpin turn. A healthy line of cars passed me going the other way, surely at the end of a whole weekend spent on the lake, but I was willing to wait that out if I had to. The mountains and trees restored me.

I got a notification from Kelly up in Reno/Tahoe that she recognized the road from a picture I’d posted. I remarked to her that it suddenly made sense why Tahoe fit her so well. The feel of the winding mountain roads dappled with the shadows of tall trees felt like Incline in the best way.

After running along the southern side of the mountains, the road finally turned inward and I slid into an overlook parking area shortly afterward, agog at the view. The road sat high on one of the mountains, overlooking a wide valley below. Mountains thick with trees filled the entire horizon, one behind the other, with the lake itself just barely visible in the distance. It felt remote, and I understood why Big Bear was such a popular retreat from the noise of Los Angeles. 

The road continued along the valley walls until it finally dropped to the lake, sending me along the southern shore. I passed lake houses perched on rocky outcroppings and hidden driveways leading back up into the hills. The resemblance to Tahoe was strong, though more like the busier lakeside towns like Southlake than the quiet comfort of Incline. The pace on the road went slow, but I soon found my coffee shop, where the proud owner informed me just which beans went into my cold brew. I sat on the porch with the coffee and a Danish and read through my local options.

My knee had made itself known a little at the end of the Ryan Mountain hike; no pain, but a telltale weakness that means I need to do a few more strengthening exercises. Given that and the exhaustion temporarily at bay, I decided my Labor Day didn’t need to be quite so adventurous. I was there, I had arrived, I could relax. I drove into the Big Bear Village area, parked, and got some lunch while reading my book. I then strolled to the Big Bear Brewing Company and tried some of their in-house concoctions. The speed was perfect, just me and my book, no longer jetting from beach to beach or self-stranded in the desert.

There’s not much more to the day, really. I drove all the way around the lake, stopping to take pictures of the water or the towering pines. Then, when I had good and properly seen the place, I left. The line of cars had died down and I got home relatively without incident, climbing down out of the mountains with the same joy I’d had going up. When I arrived back at the house, I collapsed into the couch and let the cat climb up for some attention.

I did it. Beaches, deserts, mountains. What do I like about LA?  You’re only a few hours from everything.

Labor Day Trips, Part I - Before the Mast

"Los Angeles is great because it's a big city, but you drive a few hours out of the city and you hit beaches, deserts, mountains...it's great!"

...is what I said a lot when people asked "Why LA?"

It's not that I didn't mean it; I do love all of those environments. But that reason was, for a while, a cover for a reason I didn't think people would understand. I moved to LA because if I moved anywhere else, I'd be thinking about LA.

When Labor Day leapt out from behind the annual family lake trip this year, I realized I didn't have anything to do with myself. I had already worked a few weekends in August and the workload hadn't died down, so I knew sitting around the apartment would devolve into calculating pension benefits or coding our software. I couldn't go to Tahoe because my roommate was out of town and I had to watch our cat, who is even now splayed out belly-up next to my laptop as though I were taking dictation for his memoirs.

At last, someone suggested I take some day trips. Ojai, San Juan Capistrano, Temecula. I loved the idea immediately. Hop in the car in the mornings, spend a day driving to a new place and exploring, then come back home. No hotels, which meant money saved, but a day long enough to soak a place in.

Of the suggested options, I picked San Juan Capistrano and landed on Big Bear Lake for a second outing. I had friends who raved about escaping to Big Bear and it made more sense to fill in that gap in the map than to entrust one of my precious days to a Best Of  listicle. As of Saturday morning of Labor Day Weekend, that was my plan. San Juan Capistrano on Saturday, Big Bear on Sunday, Monday at home...potentially working. Beaches, Mountains, home.

Man plans, God laughs.

I set out Saturday morning with a day bag filled with swim trunks, sunscreen, clothes for a hike, and various other "what if" elements. As I fired up Google Maps, however, I discovered something I probably should have looked into before...San Juan Capistrano isn't actually on the water. It's close-ish and Capistrano Beach is, as is sounds, a shore town, but if I was going for a beach-centric day, perhaps I would need to do more than drive straight to SJC. I decided the PCH would be a good route to take: pick it up as early as I could and make the slower, lazier way down with the Pacific beside me.

"But what about other stops?" I wondered. Inspired by my random detour to Crystal Bridges on my drive west, I googled museums along the coast. One of the first hits caught my eye immediately; at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, they had a replica of the Pilgrim, the brig Richard Henry Dana sailed with, inspiring his book "Two Years Before the Mast." I had read "Two Years..." during the winter and found myself amazed at its depiction of a remote, sparsely populated Southern California. For instance, Dana mentioned how the small port town of San Pedro ran wagons back and forth to the far-off, inland Ciudad de Los Angeles. The idea of being in San Pedro and thinking "eh, Los Angeles is a ways off" is unimaginable now.

As I remembered this and other passages, I suddenly started, thinking, "Richard Henry Dana. Dana Point. Oh..." I don't know why the penny didn't drop until that moment...probably because I didn't really remember the author's name that well...but if there's one thing I love, it's a tall ship. I put the car into drive and cruised off to pick up the PCH.

Though naturally slow on the PCH, the traffic was surprisingly light for beach towns on Labor Day Weekend. Making good time, I pulled off north of Huntington Beach, park the car, and put a towel out to take a break. As I sat, reading Algorithms to Live By (highly recommended), the waves overwhelmed my busy August, rounding the harsher edges down. I became immediately thankful I took the advice to get away and additionally grateful that I was doing it on my own. Early departures, random stops, complete audibles on a day's plan: these would be the hallmarks of the weekend and they are hard to get away with when traveling as a group.

After my wee sunny sit, I got a cold brew and a chocolate croissant at the Newport Beach Corner Cafe. I sat on their patio, now hiding from the sun, and watched as folks biked up in swimsuits for coffee or crossed the busy street with their beach bags and sand buckets. The northern edge of town reminded me of Stone Harbor back east. Low buildings, small businesses, houses once bought for a song that would sell for a symphony. It was pleasantly familiar and that feeling survived even my brief foray into the choked streets of the Balboa Peninsula.

Once I got back on the PCH, I stayed on until Dana Point, turning off onto the Street of the Green Lantern. Despite my hopes for Batman Avenue or the Kal-El Camino Real, it seems that Dana Point has many Lantern roads (Blue, Amber, Ruby, Violet, Crystal, etc). Though each a mouthful, the street names evoked bright flame behind colored glass swinging in a night breeze at the head of each street.

Hal Jordan Street led to Cove Road, which twisted and turned down the tall cliffs of Dana Point, sufficiently set back from the rocky ridge so that I could not see the water until the last turn, where the road leveled out and the Dana Point Harbor spread out before me. Beneath the towering cliffs, boats bobbed in their slips or struck out along the long breakwater to get to sea. Paddle boards dotted the harbor, deftly navigating around the piers and, in some intrepid cases, venturing across the water to the Ocean Institute, where the Pilgrim sat gleaming in the sun.

Her rigging soared and criss-crossed itself. Her ropes and beams creaked as she rocked slightly against her mooring. A few volunteers scrambled around the deck, but I could not keep my eyes off the ship herself long enough to see what they were busy at. I walked along the railing to where a gate barred entry to her dock; tours were only held on Sundays. I took a seat on a bench beside the Ocean Institute and meditated on the ship, tracing the lines from beam to block, from block down to the pins.

Once I began walking again, I passed a plaque devoted to Dana himself, recalling how he and the crew of the Pilgrim collected dried cattle hides tossed out over the very cliffs that still towered over the harbor today. Across the sidewalk, a bronze statue depicted two sailors bringing in a sail, their legs firm against the footrope and their arms heavy with canvas. A little farther off, in another gated-off area, stood a small mast and a series of pulley stations, apparently an outdoor classroom to teach children about tall ships.

From there, I decided to investigate the long, rocky breakwater that stretched south from the cliffside, creating the long, thin Dana Point Harbor. There was a pathway along the breakwater, beginning on the far western end of the Ocean Institute, where several families and couples had scattered around the rocks. Once up on the breakwater itself, I saw a staircase on my right leading down to a small, boulder-ridden beach below the cliffs. With the breakwater several yards up off the water, I decided the beach would be a better spot.

I stayed on that beach for the better part of an hour, sitting atop a boulder half again as tall as me and watching as the water maneuvered through the rock piles below. The cliffs behind me leapt from the beach in a great wall, isolating me on this one little spot of land. Families walked past, the children looking in the tidal pools for signs of life, the parents throwing their hands out whenever the kids seemed about to lose their footing.

When I finally came down from my perch, I felt light. I kicked off my sandals and walked back to the staircase with my feet in the water, dodging whenever the waves splashed off the rocks in my direction.

As I returned to the car, a sandwich-board sign caught my eye. The next weekend, the 9th through the 11th, there would be a tall ships festival in Dana Point. Given how thrilling the Pilgrim was, it was a no-brainer, but I nonetheless stood staring at the sign in amazement. How had I happened upon this? I made a note in my phone to look up the details, then put it from my mind.

I felt I no longer had to go to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, so I did a drive-by on it and kept moving, continuing all the way up to Seal Beach. There, I parked the car off one of the main shopping drags before plopping down in Bogart's Coffee House. I flipped back and forth between Algorithms and the internet, while eavesdropping as a local retiree held court with his buddies around a nearby table.

As dinnertime came around, I ate at The Hangout on the same block, then walked out across the Seal Beach pier as the sun set. Swimmers, runners, people playing with their dogs in the surf: all turned gold while the families along the pier pulled on sweatshirts and huddled close. In the distance, the sun dipped over San Pedro, the harbor's towering cranes striking severe silhouettes. With the light went the heat of the day, so I stepped up my pace back down the pier and past the shop windows on the way to my car.

One day down. The next day would be Big Bear and I had decided on the drive up to Seal Beach that I would make a real challenge out of it and add Joshua Tree on Monday.


Beaches, Mountains, Desert, in three days. Seemed like a good spin on a staycation.

The Fighting 31st

It's shaping up to be a busy day, so I must write quickly and hope that I make sense in the end.

It's my 31st birthday, y'all.

What a year. What an incredible, incredible year.

When I wrote my birthday post on Facebook last year, celebrating 30 (31!) things I was proud of, I didn't know then that I was strapped to a rocket and that, in a paraphrase of Bradbury, the rocket was me. I have done such great things, such adventurous things, such open-hearted and open-minded things in the past year that I cannot help but be proud.

I spent the first hour of this day seeing the Facebook notifications come in, seeing the texts from certain close friends, and staring at the card from my mom sitting on my desk. I wanted to get back to everyone, to respond with more than a Like on every post on my wall and to thank everyone for thinking of me (even if it was only Zuckerberg-assisted). I especially wanted to do this because one of the greatest lessons I have learned in the past year is that in times of doubt, it is reasonable and even encouraged to look around at the people who love you, a configuration that is unique to you, and let that be a sort of gravity shadow to tell you that the space you hold must be filled with something positive, something worthwhile, something worthy of love, based simply on the people you attract.

But before I can celebrate with you all, I had to take the time to celebrate with myself, because the other great takeaway from this year and the greatest part of my life in Los Angeles so far is that I finally love and appreciate my own company. I want to spend time alone. I want to listen to my thoughts. I want to accomplish my goals. I want to respect my body and mind. I want to help myself the way I rushed to help so many friends over the years. I trust myself as my own advocate. I am a friend to myself, at last.

When friends back in Atlanta told me my happiness was visible, that I seemed comfortable with myself, that it was night and day from before (which wasn't even bad), I told them honestly that there are times, when I think of the distance between how happy and content I am now and how I have been in the past, that I am brought to tears, joyful, thankful tears. It has been such a long road, but I am here.

This move, this year, this life has been grand. Thank you for your part in it, whomever might be reading this.

Carpe Commentarius

Saturday, my morning pages took me to the end of a journal gifted to me by my friend Jessica. Jessica and I met through the St. Benedict Catholic Church, specifically its teen group, and after many years, we reconnected by chance two falls back. After hearing about all my grand plans for myself, Jessica gifted me the journal, thick with off-white pages, bound in a suede cover with the words “Carpe Diem” stamped into the front. 

After I began doing morning pages in Tahoe, I soon learned how quickly the exercise scarfed down journals. Luckily, I had a few lying in wait, mostly gifts like Jessica’s. The Carpe Diem journal is now the latest one to be set aside, bearing that slightly open swell of a journal well-used. 

Despite moving on to a gorgeous Shakespearean journal gifted to me by my M&B board mom, CJ Hauser, the Carpe Diem journal will always hold a special place going forward. The first entry in it was February 4th of this year…five days after I arrived in LA. When I flip through the book, the black ink flashes from page to page and seems far too much for the two and a half months it has been. But then the experience of that short time has also seemed inordinately stuffed, to the point that even my mother commented at Easter that it felt like six months had passed since I left the east coast. Unintentionally, at least by my recollection, I began writing this new chapter down in a book commanding me to stride forth confidently. This feels warm and right. 

It was a fitting day to end on, too, a Saturday after a week of significant change. Last Sunday, I joined the nearby LA Fitness and Monday night, I signed up for personal training. During that meeting, I sat across from a tall, stacked, goofy, enthusiastic training director named David who had called me Bro Montana on our first call and who posted up for a muscle-corded high five when I got his passing Doctor Who joke. In between his descriptions of my goals, we digressed into discussions of the Justice League and swapped stories of horrifying sea creatures. In short, I was surprised to find out that the titan before me was a big ol’ nerd. 

David takes it upon himself to be the first workout in the program and takes a special joy in making people hate him while keeping up the fun chatter. We did a number of exercises that pushed me significantly, most of which involved David telling me that if I didn’t relax my shoulders and neck, I was going to seriously hurt myself. At the end of the session, he told me what Erik had in Tahoe: I had a decent amount of existing muscle, but none of it worked together. 

David asked me to come in the next morning to meet with one of the trainers and get initial measurements to track my progress. I had already done the math on morning gym sessions and I didn’t see a way to get up, write, work out, and get to work without getting up at four AM. Nonetheless, I decided to make this first session for the measurements, keep my morning pages, and move my actual writing session to the evening. This still meant getting up at the unthinkable hour of 5:15. 

On Tuesday, something incredible happened. My brain woke me up five minutes before my alarm. I got out of bed in a room and world still dark, pulled the chain of my overhead light, sat down at my desk, and began my morning pages. I was done by 5:45. I dressed for the gym, crept through the house, and stepped outside, where the morning began to brighten. I took the opportunity of the walk to my car to call my mom, who was surprised to hear my voice so early. 

At the gym, a trainer named Matt took my measurements and put me through another workout. At the end, I felt worn out, but fantastic. I got back to the house at quarter to eight, showered, dressed for work, and began my walk to the metro. I hit the Water Court outside our office building at quarter to nine. Early for work.

I felt incredible throughout the day, downing water constantly. During a practice meeting, I noticed that, for the first time, I wasn’t fidgeting. I felt laser-focused on the person speaking, my body happy to be at rest, without any excess energy to work out. 

Then, after I got home, I ate a quick dinner and sat down to what felt like the moment of truth. Working out is a goal of mine, but not to the degree writing is. When David had asked me to gauge my commitment on a scale of one to ten, I told him eight just because writing would always come first. Still, I had let the gym dictate almost the entire day’s schedule, so I was curious how much energy I would have after the gym and a full workday. 

Thirty minutes later, I hit my word target for the day. Effortlessly. 

Still curious, I got in bed shortly after nine and kept the same alarm. I woke Wednesday, did my morning pages, and went to the gym, this time working out on my own. Home before eight, showered, out the door. Still on time. That night, another full stint of writing. 

Then again on Thursday, this time meeting with a trainer named Stephanie who put me through a workout that left me sitting in the gym lobby, chugging water and staring into middle distance until I believed I could make it back to my car. 

I wrote 100 words past my target that night and set myself a to-do item to raise my output weekly. 

Friday I worked out alone again and, throughout the workday, the degree of soreness through my body felt like a calendar of the week behind. I felt Monday in my arms, Tuesday in my chest, Thursday in my legs and back…especially Thursday. Steph doesn’t mess around.

I looked back on the week agog. I had never been so diligent about going to the gym, nor had it ever been so simple to get up so early. My best guess is that by keeping the first minutes of the day for morning pages, for my own thoughts, my own company, I make it clear to myself that I am a priority, something I’m sure friends and family would agree has been an issue in the past. 

And so we come to Saturday, the first day in six that I slept in. No alarm whatsoever, my first obligation of sorts at 3pm. I woke up at nine, tangled in my sheets, feeling the weight of our housecat between my feet. I looked around my sunny room with a smile.

As I got up and began my pages, noting the end of the journal, I realized how rare a morning it was. I have never enjoyed sleeping in on a Saturday or really sleeping in at all. I love the wee hours of the morning and even when I travel, if my travel partners want to rest, I creep outside and have a quick, quiet adventure before they’re up. I considered this Saturday's change, this sudden appreciation for the break, and realized that for so many years, Saturday was the only diem I ever carpe’d. I felt so little connection to the accomplishments of my weekday that Saturday bore the full brunt of my purpose in life, carrying seven days worth of expectation like a busboy with a too-high stack of plates. Unless a Friday night precluded it, I woke early on Saturdays to claim as much time to myself and with friends as possible, storing personal satisfaction in my hump for the desert of the workweek. 

Today, though, I woke with a week of satisfaction in the bank, having gone to the gym eagerly with genuine goals in mind, having written indulgently because I no longer need it to save me from my own life. With all that stored up, with a body sore from effort and a journal replete with output, I saw the value in sleeping until I woke naturally. 

Going forward, not only will that soft suede journal be the account of my initial time here in LA, but it will also end where I hope a routine begins. Part of me feels it dangerous to publish this after only a week. I have self-congratulated on writing progress before only to have the stream run dry. But even if I fall off dramatically, this last week will still have happened in a way that cannot be changed. It is, quite literally, in the books. 

Snow, Stone, and Sky

How long do you have to live in a place before it feels like home? LA is said to take a few years, so despite how at ease I feel in my early-established haunts, perhaps there are deeper roots to sink before it's home.

Regardless of how long LA might take, though, I have another data point to compare it to. Lake Tahoe became home in three short months.

I learned this at the end of the long Friday drive I began after dropping Chelsea off with her friend. US-395 was familiar territory after two southern jaunts last fall, but neither trip saw the Sierra Nevadas quite so majestic with snow. On the prior treks, the range had seemed far off, especially so every time I tried to take a picture. Furthermore, the previous drives had grown dark after about half the drive, depriving me of the most dramatic scenery along the way. No surprise, then, that as I drove up Friday afternoon, I pulled off the road time and time again to snap a quick picture (or 80, as my Instagram followers probably bemoaned) and take a minute or two for myself, breathing the crisp air and following the blanketed ridges off into the distance.

Perhaps it was that ride that distracted me from even asking the question of whether Tahoe would be a homecoming. I had been excited before the trip, having planned a return as soon as possible after my move, but it hadn't been the weightiest decision. Do you want to go to a cool place? Yes I do. Also, I felt an element of reassurance. Through the years, Erik and I have bonded over our distance from the place that formed our friend group, but I failed to make it out to Tahoe for years until that long stay last fall. Once I got to LA, I felt it important to get to Tahoe quickly to assure him and myself that the bond was cemented. After all, even among a pantheon of friends that humble me regularly, Erik's generosity and support last year stand out, especially because he would shrug that off and say "Meh, I liked having you here."

For that reason, I didn't think about the homecoming aspect until I crested a hill and saw the lake. As soon as possible, I pulled to the side of the road, leaned against my car, and stared at sunset over the water, letting tears fall. At that first sight, my heart leapt. I felt embraced by the setting and, in that embrace, I realized how much healing had happened in those three months. Every moment I find myself smiling at my life now, every time I poke my head into the former dark places within and find them reshaped in radiance, I can trace it to that place and the progress I made there.




Is it as simple as recognizing one's fortune? Realizing the sheer arrogance of claiming frustration with one's life when one can say one's friend would have them as a houseguest in Lake Tahoe? Um, yeah, probably. I have had both internal and external voices telling me recently that my life is nothing to sneeze at and I think I finally get that. Apologies to the voices that have been saying it for years.

I also feel, though, that Tahoe represents the marriage of two of the most important things that make a home for me (and really most people, of course), friends that make you grow and a place that charges you up. Tahoe’s ample beauty alone isn’t enough to bring me back as much as I can afford (though it’s pretty close), but tell me I can go to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and have deep friendships there when I arrive? Well, damn, let me set up half a dozen low-fare alerts now (juuuust kidding, they’re already set up).

The weekend was short, but rich. After my emotional moment with the lakeside, I made my way north to Incline Village, the sign for which gave me another jolt of feeling. I parked outside the complex, trundled my spinner along the familiar walkway, and climbed the stairs to the apartment I so often came home to (from what, walks to the coffee shop?) for three months. To my delight, the dogs missed my footsteps on the stairs, but began barking when I swung the door open. I’ll admit, I had hoped there would be some recognition, especially after Erik said Lucy sniffed around my room for a while after I drove back east. Though welcoming leaps are normal for Lucy, she seemed particularly excited, while Bailey, ever the chill one, wagged enthusiastically and, as Kelly pointed out, smiled.

I hugged Erik and Kelly and shared with them how hard my arrival had hit me. Meanwhile, my eyes raced around the apartment, taking in the restorative surroundings with a new mindset. In what became a tone for the weekend, I got to appreciate the beauty of the apartment, the town, my friends, and the wider setting without concurrently feeling the deep channels of anxiety and doubt about my future.

The night took us to Alibi, where we got food truck pizza (out of an actual brick oven on the back of the truck), played some Exploding Kittens, and ultimately dove into a deep but friendly discussion of politics helped along by a particularly fine IPA. When we got home, Erik and I tried and struggled to watch some Deadwood, but the drive and the drinks caught up and I found my old bed.

Saturday, we took the dogs and their FAVORITE drone to the lake, where we spent the day enjoying gorgeous weather and stunning scenery. As with the drive, snow in the mountains altered and heightened the familiar views, as pictures can convey better than I can.
















After tossing around some Incline Village options for dinner, we called an audible and planned a night out in Reno. After some showering and changing, we piled into two cars and caravanned over Mount Rose. Apparently, during the ride, Lucy gazed out the back window of Erik’s car, keeping tabs on me in case I decided to leave again.

The night began with incredible sushi, ended with an Uber through a McDonald’s drive-thru, and made stops at the Simpsons Arcade Game, an asshole firefighter, and an ex-parrot friend along the way. Hearkening back to the Reno nights of last fall, we definitely got after it, necessitating the next morning’s tradition of a greasy breakfast and fetching of a car.

If it feels like I’m at the end of the weekend sooner than expected, then I’ve captured the feeling I had at around 2pm Sunday when it dawned on me that the eight hours back weren’t going to drive themselves. We said our goodbyes and, as we had all weekend, discussed me flying in the future to give us more time to hang out.

As if to reinforce that decision, the drive back proved a slog even mountain majesties couldn’t quite overcome, particularly once I got back into town and played the parking game.







During that drive, though, I did think about how this first trip back felt. Familiar and refreshing, tried and true, like visiting a part of myself.

It felt like home.

Of All the Comrades That E'er I Had

What a difference a year makes!

When my friend Chelsea reached out to say she'd be in LA the weekend of St. Patrick's Day for a bachelorette, I didn't think about it much at first beyond being excited to see her. I had already planned on spending Friday night through Sunday up in Tahoe, so we tucked away St. Patrick's Day itself for a night out in LA, making it the second year in a row we would celebrate St. Paddy's by going out together.

As the day itself approached, I began to feel not only the weight of the year between our shared festivities, but also the import of that prior night back in March of 2015.

Chelsea and I met up on the 14th, the preceding Saturday night, in a great Roswell, GA pub called Mac McGee's. Her husband David, also a close friend, was traveling with his business school program, so we connected earlier in the day about possibly meeting up after Chelsea got some studying in.

Looking back, it's amazing that Chelsea and I even made it out at all. It was the third wind of my St. Patrick's day celebration, following a coworker's house party and a meet-up with my high school friends. Then, thanks to some glitch, we'd missed some of each other's texts planning on a place to meet. Finally, after landing on the time and place, Chelsea had to double back for her wallet.

Finally, though, we made it to Mac MacGee's and knocked back Jameson's shots and a Guinness or two in the second floor bar while live Irish trad music drifted up from the floor below. After staying a while, we decided we wanted to talk without shouting over a fiddle and went back to my apartment, where I imagine I had more whiskey waiting ('twas the season). We sipped our drinks and talked more, the type of deep, thought-provoking conversations Chelsea and I really like to have (either with Dave or on our own).

The conversation that night turned to work, unsurprisingly. Chelsea and I had met when our two companies merged and our beyond-work friendship also allowed for frank discussions about our teams, our office, and the company-at-large. By that point, I had told Chelsea of my plan to leave Towers during the coming summer and, being the lucky winner of that confidence, she had to hear a lot of nervous outbursts every time I sat through a planning meeting with more information than the rest of the room.

That night, I repeated my reluctance to leave my workload to be split among my already-busy teams filled with people about whose stress and success I deeply cared. I then said that even people on other teams would be affected and that she, Chelsea, who didn't overlap with me at all on assignments, might even be left holding some of the bag.

Chelsea's response was, and I'm paraphrasing, "Yes, it will affect me, and all of the people on your teams. But you can't let that keep you from doing what you need to do for yourself at this point." Her support and selflessness moved me. More accurately, it set something in motion within me.

Within a week, I told Towers I was leaving. Chelsea did not back away from the inevitability of affecting my team members, but by encouraging me to go for it anyway, she made me realize that the best way to leave and do right by my teams was to break the news early, even if they had to show me the door that day. Luckily, since a soul-searching artistic journey was not the same as going to a competitor, they let me stay through early July. I got everything I wanted without having to skulk around for months with my secret. I feel I owe that to Chelsea.

And it seems impossible not to see that moment as a match set to the fuse of the year that followed. My departure from Atlanta, my travels to Boston and New York, my trek across the country, months of blissful retreat in Tahoe, and all of the peace I found that let me return to the job, all of that stems from someone nudging me in the direction of my own authenticity and values.

Our night out in LA this year was just as fun. We met at one of my favorite bars in my neighborhood, walked to my new home in all its serendipitous glory, laughed over dinner at a diner, and finally Ubered out into Hollywood. We hit similar beats to the year before, replacing the cozy upper floor of Mac McGee's with the dark interior parlor room at Sassafras, then once again moving along when the live music made it too hard to hear each other. Our search for a quieter scene took us to Stout, where we talked about finding the balance in life and how prior lives of high highs and low lows compare to a steady increase in one's baseline contentment.

Chelsea and I are either different people with similar approaches or similar people with different approaches. It's hard to tell which sometimes. The differences are somewhat cosmetic: hobbies, interests, approaches to work. On the other hand, our childhoods share similarities that shaped how we react to and roll with the world, but that sometimes make reacting to and rolling with ourselves difficult. We both analyze things to the bone and both want to go where other people are as much as possible. Perhaps it's these alignments that help me learn about my own journey whenever I hear Chelsea talk about hers.

Eventually, we Ubered back home and fell asleep, only to wake up early and begin solving the problems of the world again, first in our pajamas, then over brunch at Home. Ultimately, I dropped Chelsea off for lunch with the bride-to-be. We parted with a hug and I found myself saying, "Thank you, I needed this." I have been processing the success of this move a lot, but I think part of that processing needed to happen with someone else. It was a pleasant thought as I turned my car northward to further echoes of my past year.

I intended to make this post about Chelsea's visit AND Tahoe, but as usual, the topics choose their own length. I will get to my Tahoe return in the next day or so. For now, it is fit to share my enthusiasm and gratitude for Chelsea's friendship and for the geographic fortune that results in such an unlikely tradition. I owe each person in my unthinkably broad network of friends and family some form of debt for placing me into the swift and easy current that now carries me along, but, in a very real way, Chelsea started it.

Thank you so much, Chels. Who knew, when we met one-on-one to discuss a post-merger exam policy, that we'd be friends at all, much less St. Patrick's Day partners-in-crime. The world is wonderfully precise sometimes.