After an extended period of time chilling like a pimp in south San Diego, which a lot of the time just felt like an expensive Mexico, but without the pesos and somewhat more higher population of black people, when more or less meant I could not use my extended lexicon of agreement ‘fo shizzle’ in daily conversations, least I be shot for insulting the great language of ebonics with my cracker like ways.
I digress, while the joys of an operational oven and the access to soft cheeses were nearly an incentive to stay far longer than I had initially intended, I had to break myself away from the joys of conventional food and move into the unknown territory of travel and road based food, which in general turned out to be sandwiches and peanuts, I was hopefully pensive this trip may turn out to be a little different as far as food diversification was concerned.
First stop point via Amtrak and falsely adverted wifi equipped connecting bus was the bohemian and self proclaimed homosexual capital of the world, Vatican City. That could have been a dream like choose-your-own adventure, or I may have been in San Francisco. The city of hills and irregular rain pattern, which was to set the cycle for the next weeks worth of atmospheric perspiration (precipitation).
perspiration, a poem of dampness.
Sweat from the sky, but only if it was a cold sweat like you had just seen your mother-in-law naked, sun baking in the lawn chair in all her glory for the world to see.
Other patterns that were to emerge in the subsequent week were as follows, that free wifi could be literally found anywhere, Borders book stores stay open till 11pm not requiring you to purchase anything. Thus you can utilize them as a library, but without the added discomfort of dealing with smelling homeless people, that is not to say all homeless people are smelly, it is just an overwhelming majority seem to have a preference of buying a 40oz of malt liquor than deodorant. Mind you if given a choice I would be taking the handle of gin over a crisp aerosol can of smelly stuff.
San Francisco is a town of hills, literally. The only real flat sections of the town are the waterfront, it turns out the only reason they are, is that rubbish was used to flatten it out. Thus if people were to say I think the waterfront is shit, one should correctly respond, “I wish to disagree with you fine sir/madam, but we are only standing on it, not viewing of it.”
But apart from the ass workout that was walking up hills for 3 days straight, it should also be realized that trekking up those fuckers when you are carrying a full pack is no walk in the park either. Getting from the where the bus dropped us off to our first napping location of Kim’s house was slightly more of a challenge than first realized, after some quick research on Google Maps it seemed relatively straight forward journey we had to take, head down the main street, left for 5 blocks then a right. Since Google Maps fails to utilize any topographical features, a feature I am sure they will integrate soon, that and a stalking feature, we did not work out that the 5 blocks to the left would be us gallivanting up the steepest hill in San Fran, yah. With full packs, double yah.
We eventually made it to her house, on the edge of Chinatown, buggered and ready for sleep, turns out she was not there yet but still out ‘working’ at 11pm at night. Once the fine lass had returned, we chatted about where was cool to check out and then crashed out on her futon. Next couple of days were employed in the fun times of seeings different areas of town, the Castro, the gay epicenter of the currently known universe, Haight & Ashburry where the hipsters intertwine with the pot dealers. Ventured around the waterfront area where tasty cheese was consumed and free chocolate samples taken, up towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which was mainly so I could get a photo of the thing so I could demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt to the naysayers that yes I had been to San Francisco. And of course Chinatown the location of our temporary residence, where the most amazing egg tart was eaten.
But by far the best part of San Francisco for me was the City Lights Bookstore which had an entire section on the top floor dedicated to the beat generation, and a recently published graphic novel about the authors themselves, Hunter S Thomson, Jack Karouc, etc. In addition the laneway behind the bookstore, named after Jack Karouc.
In order to get out of San Fran turned out to be slightly more of a challenge than getting in, as the 10 hour journey from SF to Portland was a bit expensive in our opinion via Greyhound funland so the über fun and slightly more dodgy method was chosen, ridesharing through craigslist. Essentially all those beat authors had seeped into my subconscious enough times that I was ready to create my own amazing adventure based on people with variable levels of sanity, drugs and jazz clubs. Or I could be electronic hitchhiking. Either way I was destined to meet some interesting characters.
The variable nature of ridesharing can be a bit iffy with 2 people bailing on us for a ride from SF to Portland, but we managed to grab a lift in the end with a crazy cool 20 year old with a souped up 88’ Ford Escort GT. Adventurous might be a bit of an understatement of how we felt embarking on our first rideshare. In the first hour of driving we were able to miss the turn off to Portland, meaning we ended up driving 50 miles further than we needed and managed to see the capital of California, Sacramento to in order to take a 2nd turn off. This should have flashed a small warning for the antics that were to come. As the night progressed on this 10hr epic drive, the music changed from 90’s punk to less than mainstream hiphop, I think we managed to listen through every single album of Atmosphere through his iPod, which would periodically die when we hit a bump, which would be repaired with the classic man way of thumping it. The driver noted this was his tried and true method of electronic based device repair.
While the music was taking me back to back in the day, it was the road that kept me awake for 8 hours. There were only some headlight issues, with rain and darkness, and the occasional lack of road markings = lack of being able to see the road. In the end after a 9 hour straight shoot with only 3 stops, 2 for gas, and one to check the oil we arrived safely (I was able to unclench my buttcheeks) and without too many issues, although our driver was a bit annoyed that he was to be late to the $8 pitcher night at his local bar.
Portland, Oregon
What can only be described as a gentrified and relatively nice city. But, I guess with nothing else to do with their time they have managed to make the beer fucking beyond belief. There seemed to be more microbreweries in this town than white people in a bar for Taco Tuesday, and there is nothing white people like more than trying foreign food and embracing themselves in their strange cultures. One microbrewery was even just releasing a limited oyster brew, which was made using the juice of Canadian oysters. I personally did not try this concoction, but was lead to believe that it may be a fine drop, maybe not in the same league of PBR, but close none the less.
With the scent of malt and hops lacing all corners of the city we knew it to be destined that we perform some sort of sample quest based pub crawl. We were fortunate though, that the 1st annual Nano Beer Fest was in full swing for the weekend we were gracing the presence of fine old Portland town. A bit of bus trek to get there being located out in the burbs we bought a cup and available to us was over 20 different types of beer for sample and generally getting our drank on. Miss Crystal managed to get somewhat more than I each time a sample was requested due to her wily charms and generously proportioned assets, but due in fact that we were at a beer fest, a description sheet was available and gave information as to the type of beer and about the microbreweries themselves. We took it upon ourselves to also rate and critique each beer that we sampled, in order that we appear more professional in our demeanor, the descriptions generally failed to match our attempts at class warfare.
Staggered out of that little event a couple of hours later still in the mild afternoon sunshine to journey into the centre of town and explore parts not yet ventured to. Ie the legendary Voodoo Donut shop. We only managed to find it through sheer coincidence and we breezed through a disappointingly small Chinatown (compared to San Fran everything was minuscule). After an 1.5hr wait in line a glazed classic and a bacon maple butterscotch donut were purchased. True to form mine was the ridiculously silly one, tasted alright though.
Our kick ass couch surfing host for the land of gentrification was the lovely lass Thao, a student of the finest degree. While we did not manage to spend too much time together, the time we did get to spend was full of laughter and cupcakes. On a side note her cat managed to eat my cell phone charger cable.
Random observation
Water taps everywhere within the USA, including continuous flowing quad taps dating from the 1800’s in Portland.
To vacate from Portland we managed to organize a ride share to the beaner town of Seattle. And oh what an adventurous ride it was.
HEARTSREVOLUTION - C.Y.O.A
