Recently in travel Category

I'm still not back in Texas.  I was supposed to arrive on November 5.  It's November 18.

I haven't written anything because it didn't seem all that interesting to post the same thing every day for two and a half weeks: "Still waiting on my car to be repaired..."

Shortly after the last post the day the accident happened, my wonderful sweet amazing angelic cousin Sheryl drove down to San Luis Obispo to rescue me and take me back to San Francisco.  That way I could wait for my car there, spend more quality time with her, and avoid pissing money away on a hotel alone in San Luis, going out of my mind with guilt and worry.  They said it would take about a week to fix my car, so I figured I would be on the road the next week.

In the meanwhile, I spent about 3 hours a day on the phone with insurance people and auto repair shop goons.  The good news is that the motorcycle guy admitted the accident was his fault, so his insurance is reimbursing me for everything related to my "trip interruption": all the damage to my car, hotels, mileage for my cousin to rescue me, my dad's one-way ticket back home from Vegas since I couldn't be there to pick him up, rebooking my trip to South Carolina (where I am now) to leave from San Francisco instead of Amarillo, cell phone overages, everything.  All that went really well, I was surprised how generous they were, and how they even suggested reimbursing me for a few things I didn't think of!  (!?)

But for every bonus point the insurance people have earned, the auto shop people have negated it tenfold.  I will skip all the maddening details, but essentially they have had the car for 2+ weeks AND HADN'T STARTED REPAIRS UNTIL I CALLED AND YELLED AT THEM YESTERDAY.  They were waiting for parts to be shipped, which I understand...but the one final part that they had been waiting on FOR OVER A WEEK was a PURELY COSMETIC cover for the FUCKING BUMPER.  I went ballistic.  So allegedly they are now going to proceed with repairs sans bumper cover and have promised the car will be ready by the end of day Monday, leaving me with just barely enough time to make the two day drive to be home for Thanksgiving.

Although I know they won't hit that deadline, because (1) they seem to be completely incompetent at estimating how long their own repair processes take (2) everything that has gone wrong for me for the past few weeks has gone wrong, and will probably continue to do so.

If I do miraculously make it home in time for Thanksgiving, I will be three weeks late.  That is insane.  This accident derailed me for three weeks.  I keep thinking of Count Rugen the Six-Fingered Man in the Pit of Despair next to The Machine, standing over me saying, "I've just sucked one month of your life away..."

So much for my leisurely two months off.

Although...with Cousin Sheryl's help, I've definitely tried to make the best of my time with her in California.  There are much worse places to be stranded than a sleepy beachside town in California with sunshine, great food, great wine, and a cute dog!  I have plenty of fun stories to share, but after relaying the whole auto repair debacle I'm too pissed off to tell you any of them.  Another day, perhaps...

In the meantime, please think good thoughts for me and my poor, neglected car and pull for us that we make it home in time for Thanksgiving.  It's been over a year since I've been home-home.  That is the longest ever in my life.  I'm out of patience, and I just wanna go home.  Please.

That was not supposed to say "to San Luis Obispo".  That was supposed to say "to Los Angeles."  Today did not go as planned.

This entry was supposed to contain lots of amazing pictures of the California beach highway #1.  I left my cousin's house and took the curvy, beautiful highway that hugged the beach all the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles.  But about halfway to LA, something horrible happened that will haunt me for the rest of my life. 

I hit a guy on a motorcycle.

It all happened very fast.  I was driving along the highway, being so careful to go slow around all the crazy curves.  I came around a bend, and saw one guy coming the opposite way on a motorcycle firmly in his lane...and a guy on a motorcycle behind him totally wobbling out of control on the yellow median.  He spun out.  His motorcycle flew towards the shoulder on my side, and the motorcyclist flew right into my lane under the front of my car. 

I hit him.

I hit a human being with my car.

I can't go into details without freaking out, but please know that he is okay.  He has scratches and scrapes and a dislocated shoulder, but his brother assures me that the injuries are minor, all things considered.  I don't feel right sharing the photos from the morning, knowing what happened in the afternoon.  So rather than sharing my happy memories of sightseeing, I'd like all of you reading this to send a prayer / good thought / wish to Erik.  He is resting in the hospital right now.  And if you could also give thanks to all the Good Samaritans / angels / whatever biblical or celestial beings you believe in who stopped to help out.  I'm humbled at how many people pulled over.  Some rushed to Erik's side to render aid, others came to me to give comfort.  It was an awful awful awful day, but it could have been so much worse.  Thank you, God, for creating such effective brakes and helmets and keeping Erik safe. 

Day 4 Soundtrack: The Monkees...

When I planned this road trip, I decided to give myself a bonus day in San Francisco so I could do a little sight-seeing, spend a little extra time with my cousin Sheryl, and have a day off of driving.  So today I tried (and failed) to sleep in, and then went on a little side tour to San Jose. 

One of the things I had planned to do was go to the Computer History Museum (Where Computer History Lives™) to have a look at the Babbage Engine and other historical computer gadgets, and generally geek out.  But sadly for me, the museum is currently under major renovations and isn't open on weekdays.  No vintage computing technology for me. 


What I would have seen if the computer gods hadn't cursed me.

However, the other museum I wanted to see was open: The Winchester Mystery House.  This is an architectural oddity built and designed by an heir of the Winchester rifle fortune.  She was batshit crazy.  She was somehow convinced that all the tortured souls who had been killed by Winchester firearms had taken to their spirit forms, and made a beeline to San Jose to haunt her.  And that the only way to appease these spirits was to ensure that the mansion was continually under construction.  So what began as an 8 room farm house exploded and mutated into a 14 bedroom, 13 bathroom, 6 kitchen, 2 ballroom, 1 seance room clusterfuck.  Oddities include doors that open to a two-story drop outside, staircases that lead up to ceilings, fake doors leading to brick walls, a window in the floor,  and a kazillion little two inch high steps winding all over the place. 

I wasn't allowed to take photos inside, so the best I got was a few shots of the exterior.  Be sure to pay attention to the "Door to Nowhere" in the photo on the right:



After my little adventure, I headed back beachside and Sheryl made us some delicious risotto and we watched the San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers for the World Series championship.  And tomorrow I get up early to drive down Highway 1 to Los Angeles...
 

Day 3 Soundtrack: Wayne "The Train" Hancock, Hank Williams III, Faith No More, Alice Cooper and DragonForce... (I was getting sleepy towards the end of the day and had to punch things up.)

To keep with the redwood theme of Northern California, I found a cute little lodge with a redwood gimmick.  This little place on the outskirts of Crescent City was entirely constructed from the wood of one bigass redwood tree.  Crescent City was only stop on this whole tour where I didn't have friends or family to stay with, and I couldn't have asked for a cuter / nicer / cleaner / cheaper place.  It was RIGHT on the 101, which made it really easy to hit the road Sunday morning for San Fran.



And the drive from Crescent City to San Francisco along the 101?  Oh, man.  I was alternating between gasping about how huge and amazing the redwood trees were, and getting glimpses of the ocean with waves crashing on the beach.  I basically spent the entire morning living inside a Tom Petty song.

Not far outside of Crescent City, I started seeing signs for one of the many famous drive-through trees.  It was a waste of time, it was a waste of $5, and it would have been a waste of my day if I didn't do it!  Vrrroom!



As if the 101 wasn't scenic enough, there was an alternate scenic route along the Avenue of the Giants, which is  a curvy road through the heart of the redwood forest.  Twenty miles of nothing but redwood majesty.  I just...I was...it...I can't.  I have no idea how to convert what my little eyes saw into words.  It was beautiful.  It was humbling.  It was ridiculous.  It was the best idea ever to go the long way.



Then sadly, all the forests gave way to suburbia.  My private little drive where I might pass one car every 5 minutes turned into city traffic.  I was frowning at all the Home Depots, until this came into view and I was reminded that the city can be nice, too:



Soon after I arrived at my cousin Sheryl's little beach hideaway right off Highway 1.  I requested salmon with dill for dinner, because spending so much time in the forest made me homesick for Finland.  We had a quiet evening in, waiting for trick or treaters who never came, and eating the Tootsie Rolls meant for them.  And thus ends another day of the motor tour...

Day 2 Soundtrack: Megadeth's "Countdown to Extinction", the Pet Shop Boys greatest hits, and random selections from the country genre including "I Married a Woman Who Looks Like Jerry Reed"...

Today's drive was less eventful than yesterday.  The sunshiney niceness was replaced by cloudy drizzliness, and I opted to go via the interstate highway instead of the coastal highway.  One thing that has been frustrating me about the drive is that there are a million things to take photos of...but by the time you discover the great photo opportunity, you're already a quarter mile past it and it would be crazy to turn around.  I have a few gigabytes of untaken photos in my brain that I wish I could share with you.  (Particularly the sign where someone misspelled "corn".  I know what you're thinking.  "Aww, poor dummies probably spelled it with a K."  No, they spelled it with a "CRON".)

The other thing I wish I had better photos of is the trees.  Duh, the Pacific Northwest has a lot of them.  And this is a really beautiful time to be making this drive because of the autumn leaves.  Green, yellow, orange, burgandy, bright red.  There have been many times where I felt like I was looking at a Nuprin ad in nature: all the trees would be dark green and one lone bright yellow tree would stand out among them.  Little.  Yellow.   Different.

This is the best photo I took, and it doesn't remotely do it justice.  Orange, burgandy, and bright red aren't even represented!!



Then when I got to redwood country, it got even crazier.  The road was very, very curvy so I didn't dare try to take photos while I was driving.  But I will continue my drive through redwood country tomorrow, and I will definitely stop and take better pictures because you just have to see it.  Wowie.

This is going to be a short and unexciting entry, sorry.  I just wanna go to bed, so that I can get up and hurry along to Cousin Sheryl's tomorrow!

Day 1 Soundtrack: Hole's "Live Through This" and my Halloween playlist featuring the Hellbillies' "Surf Zombies"...

I have driven from Seattle to Portland dozens of times.  And I was always in a hurry, so I always took I-5, and always promised myself that the next time I would give myself more time and take the coastal highway.  Finally!  This happened!  Today's leg of the motor tour can be broken into two categories.  (1) The Grunge Legacy Hometowns and (2) Hollywood in Oregon on Location.

The Grunge Legacy Hometowns

Olympia is the capital of Washington.  It is also Courtney Love's hometown before she ran off to Portland to be a stripper.  Olympia seems like a regular suburban town, there honestly wasn't much to note there.

But if you turn sharply west in Olympia, you'll end up in Aberdeen which is Kurt Cobain's hometown.  He used to live under a bridge somewhere.  I remember reading about what a shithole Aberdeen was, and how Kris Novoselic decided to pursue music instead of lumberjacking "because there was less chance of decapitation in music." 

Aberdeen was pretty rough-looking.  Every third car on the road was a logger truck.  There were big patches of forest everywhere that had been clearcut.  Lots of low budget casinos and houses in disrepair.  The smell of crystal meth was in the air.  And Kurt was quoted on the "Welcome to Our City" sign:



I did not stop in Aberdeen.  I wanted to get to the less sketchy leg of the tour.

Hollywood in Oregon on Location

Did you know that a bunch of movies are filmed in Oregon? 

For example, Kindergarten Cop takes place in Astoria.  Remember when Arnold asked the children to raise their hands if they were born in Astoria?  And they all raised their hands?  Then he followed up by asking which children were not born in Astoria?  And they all raised their hands?  I was there today.  I asked myself if I was born in Astoria, and I raised my hand. 

There is a very long multi-mile bridge from the Washington border into Astoria.  The town itself is a cute little seaside village.  I purely accidentally and very smartly waited to fuel up my car until I got to Astoria.  This was smart because diesel is way cheaper in Oregon ($3.35) than Washington  ($3.50), and because the law in Oregon mandates that an attendant pump your gas for you.  That part has nothing to do with Kindergarten Cop.  That is purely for your information if you're ever traveling by car in Oregon.



Another movie filmed in Oregon is Goonies.  The pivotal scenes all happen at Cannon Beach, particularly the Haystack Rock part of Cannon Beach.  It's a huge rock formation out in the sea, and if you remember from the movie, Sean Astin used it to line up something from a map or something before he took a puff of his inhaler.  And I completely understand the need for the inhaler, because when I came around the corner and saw this, it took my breath away.  Both because it was so huge and amazing, and because for one second *I* felt like one of the Goonies, too.  And yes, I did listen to Cyndi Lauper's "Goonies R Good Enough" as I drove away.



And the final movie filmed in Oregon is Overboard, which took place in the town of Elk Cove.  (Or as the richies in the movie called it, "Elk Snout.")  I had hoped to stand on the waterfront with an air horn, blast it three times, and call out "Arturo!  Arturo!"  But sadly, Elk Cove seems to be an entirely fictional town.  I could not find it on any map, so I had to be content to drive along the Oregon coast, blasting my car horn three times, and shouting for Arturo out the car window.  Close enough.

I arrived in Portland and went to my friends Dmitria and Jason's house for my first night's stay.  Dmitria had cooked homemade macaroni and cheese for me.  With steak as a side dish!  Awesome! 

The first day of the motor tour gets an A++.  Stay tuned for more tomorrow.  There will probably be redwoods.

When Anji came to visit me in Helsinki in September, she brought me the funniest gift from Korea.  It was a luggage tag.  It was pink and cute.  There was a little girl on it, having a conversation with herself:

Little Girl: "Do you know what I like about road trips?"
Little Girl: "Motor tour."

I like motor tours, too.  And in the morning, I will embark on a pretty major one.  It is finally time to pack up my car and start the long drive from Seattle to Texas.  Because I will officially be unemployed effective tomorrow, I have all the time in the world to get there.  So I'm going to go the long, inefficient, scenic route.  I'll drive along beaches, through redwood forests, under bridges, across deserts, by canyons, stopping at every silly and unnecessary roadside attraction along the way.



Feel free to follow along on my adventure here, I'm hoping to post daily with updates from each day's drive. 

I have loved tennis since I was a little kid.  I would play against the wall in the garage, and when I got too tall and my swings got too mighty, I would play against the side of the house.  I was jealous that my sister Lindy got to go watch a John McEnroe exhibition match in Amarillo without me.  In seventh grade I bought a pair of Andre Agassi's "Challenge Court" Nike tennis shoes with hot pink rebel detail.  I spent that whole summer at tennis camp, crushing on my tennis coach Dave.

I loved to play, but I loved to watch it on TV, too.  I have vivid memories of John McEnroe's temper tantrums.  Pete Sampras vomiting on court.  The time Michael Chang got horrible leg cramps and had to serve underhanded.  Thinking Jim Courier looked like Rocky from "Mask".  Learning how to say "Ivanisevic".  Andre Agassi's first year at Wimbledon, where everyone was all a-titter speculating how he'd challenge the "you must wear 85% white" rule.  (We all thought he would push it to the max and have leopard print accents or something...but he showed up in head-to-toe white with no detail color whatsoever.)

During all those years, it never really occurred to me that I could go see any of that in person.  It wasn't until I lived in Australia in 2001 that I ever even considered going to a tennis match.  I was living there with my sister and her family, and tickets to the Australian Open weren't that expensive and Melbourne was an easy roadtrip away.  We went, and the whole experience only made me love tennis harder...and made me vow that I would see every single Grand Slam tennis tournament in person before I died.

Well, I guess I can die now.  Because with that last post about Wimbledon, I can officially declare that life goal complete! 

1. Australian Open (January 2001)
   
   
   
   We had show court tickets to one of the night sessions, which was one women's match and one men's match.  We saw Elena Dementieva play against...I have no idea, I don't remember.  All I remember is that Dementieva wore pink.  And the men's match was Carlos Moya (who was one of my favorites at the time) versus Lleyton Hewitt (the hometown Aussie boy who I hated).  I had so much fun in the stands being one of the lone Moya supporters.  I'm pretty sure I did a few crotch chops to the Aussie fans.  And it worked, because Hewitt lost.  Yay!
   
   
2. US Open (August 2007)
   
   
   
   I joined the USTA purely to be able to buy pre-sale show court tickets for this one.  I scored day session seats on Arthur Ashe stadium, which is the biggest #1 show court.  We saw Justin Henin play someone.  Then the men's match was Mardy Fish versus Tommy Robredo.  I was a little disappointed, because I don't really follow those guys.  But!  We were on the side of the stadium where if you climb to the tippy top row (which was only about three steps, our seats were awful), you could peek over the ledge and see 75% of Louis Armstrong stadium court below.  And that was the big Novak Djokovic / Radek Stepanek 5 setter that was the talk of the tournament that year.
   
   
3. Roland Garros / French Open (May 2010)
   
   
   
   I already covered my day in Paris a little while ago, but I'll quickly summarize it here again for the sake of thoroughness.  I wasn't able to get tickets to the big #1 Court Philippe Chatrier, I had to settle for tickets to the #2 Court Suzanne Lenglen.  But our luck was retarded good because Nadal was playing that day, the schedule was organized to ensure he was on the biggest court.  Meaning that none other than Roger Federer himself was on my court!  I got to see the greatest tennis player of all time!?  I'm still in shock.
   
   
4. Wimbledon (June 2010)
   
   
   
   I just covered my day in Wimbledon, which was complete with 4-5 hours in queue to get in, a visit from Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II, strawberries, cream, Pimms, getting to see Isner/Mahut (the longest match ever boys) in the flesh, a nap on Henman Hill, and finishing the day watching Rafael Nadal win on the jumbotron.
   

So to recap, ladies and gentleman, I officially have a CAREER GRAND SLAM.  This is one of those life goals I never ever ever thought I would complete, and much like Inigo Montoya, now that it's done, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.  Should I shoot for a calendar grand slam next? 

Editor's note: the events described here actually happened June 24-26, 2010.

The Wimbledon tennis tournament was an epic event this year, for many reasons:

1. The record was broken for the longest tennis match in history (11 hours, 5 minutes of play over three days, the match finished 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(7-9), 7-6(7-3), 70-68 for a total of 183 games).
   
   
2. The Queen was there.
   
   
3. I WAS THERE!!!!  Thereby officially completing my life goal to attend all 4 grand slam tennis tournaments in person!

The Wimbledon tennis tournament is as absolutely as complicated as possible for attendees.  All the other tournaments work like any normal event.  You decide you want to go, tickets go on sale, and then you buy them off the internet.  Wimbledon has more of an elitist slant.  If you want show court tickets, you have to write a letter to the All England Lawn and Tennis Club 12 months in advance of the tournament, respectfully requesting to be included in the lottery to determine who will be eligible to purchase tickets.  Then IF they approve your request and IF your name is drawn, you are allowed to buy tickets in advance.  Well, last summer I had no idea I would be living in Europe, much less attending their prissy tournament, which made it impossible to satisfy all their little aristocratic requirements.  So if you're unable to jump through all those hoops, your only other option is queuing on the day of.  And there are no guarantees you will get in. 



As you can see in the photo to the left above, the process for queuing is so convoluted that it literally requires a 40 page booklet to explain it.  My sisters had come to visit me, and we planned the whole trip around being able to go to Wimbledon.  So it was very unnerving to have no idea if we'd actually be able to get on the grounds.  We arrived before 7am for an 11am start time.  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And we waited some more.

After four or five hours in line, it became clear that we really were going to be able to get in!  Yay!  We patted each other on the back and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune.  Then as we were winding through all the pathways to get to the entrance, over the loudspeaker we heard a kindly British gentleman explaining that the Queen would be arriving on Henman's Hill / Murray's Mount at 11am.  I assumed I misheard it, and that there was a Queen cover band playing to open the day or something.  No!  The Queen was actually there!  You're probably thinking, "Whooptie fucking whoo, like she doesn't have her own royal box and isn't there every single year."  To which I would say, "You're wrong!  Tar fed!  This is the first time Her Royal Highness has attended the tournament since 1977.  IN YOUR FACE."

We patted each other on the back and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune again.  I mean really, how many people go to England and actually get to see the Queen in the flesh??  We camped out on the hill waiting for Lizzie Boo to arrive.  She was adorable and well-dressed and delightful.  She waved.  She smiled.  She looked a little confused.  She was there to see Britain's own Andy Murray play, who just so happened to be playing Finland's own Jarkko Niemenen.  They bowed to her like good little boys:

 

It was a wonderful day.  The weather was perfect and sunshiney.  We had strawberries and cream.  We drank Pimm's.  We saw Isner and Mahut walking back to their court for their second day of playing the same match.  Did I mention that WE SAW THE QUEEN??  It turned out to be the picture perfect Wimbledon experience, and I'm so glad that my sisters were here to do it with me.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been a John McEnroe sighting, but did I mention WE SAW THE QUEEN??

After Wimbledon we did lots of fun sightseeing in London, went on a day trip to visit Bath and Salisbury and Stonehenge.  I got yelled at for trying to take a picture of a picture of the Magna Carta, did cheerleading jumps in front of the Stonehenge stones, and had the best English vacation I ever could have hoped for.  I am patting myself on the back right now and congratulating myself on my good fortune.

Editor's note: the events described here actually happened May 27-29, 2010.

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of France.  Or the French people.  Or the French language.  I am not one of those people that thinks "trip to Europe" = "trip to Paris".  I would have been totally happy to never, ever visit France.  But there are two things that I have always said that I wanted to do if I was ever in the unfortunate situation of being in/near Paris:

1. Visit the catacombs, which are tunnels underneath the city lined with the skulls and bones of dead Frenchmen.
   
   
2. Attend Roland Garros, aka the French Open grand slam clay court tennis tournament.  (This is the biggie.  One of my life goals is to attend all of the grand slam tennis tournaments in person, so I knew that I would have to suck it up and go to Paris to be able to achieve that goal.)
   

So after my day in Antwerp, I hopped on a train and headed to gay Paris.  It was a crappy, rainy day.  My jeans and shoes were completely soaked through after walking around for the first hour.  I had to eat my stupid baguette while walking through the rain.  I got lost repeatedly.  The trains stunk of French B.O.  But!  I finally found the right neighborhood for the catacombs!


French for "catacombs that-away!"

I got so excited and was so ready to go underground and see the creepy tunnels and get out of the rain.  And then...


As if I needed another reason to hate France.

Then this dead Frenchman / catacomb mascot mocked me...

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"France hates you, too, Halee."

So the catacomb adventure was a full-on French failure.  I made the best of the rest of my day in stupid Paris by visiting the stupid Louvre and looking at the stupid Eiffel Tower from a stupid boat.  Also, I ate a stupid crepe.  Luckily for me, Sophie was meeting up with me in Paris that night and once she arrived, things got a million times better.  I got her singing the "Les poissons, les poissons, hee hee hee, hawr hawr hawr" song from The Little Mermaid.  (But we usually substituted "poissons" with "croissants", or whatever we were eating/doing at that moment.)  We met up with her friend, and turned in early so we'd be ready for all the hot tennis action the next day!

I had bought my Roland Garros tickets many months before, right when they went on sale, but even then I was  too slow to get seats at the big daddy court (Court Phillippe Chartrier).  I had to settle for tickets to the #2 show court (Court Suzanne Lenglen).  But once we arrived at the Roland Garros grounds and got our hands on a schedule, our crappy #2 court tickets suddenly got amazing.  We weren't able to see Rafael Nadal, because obviously they're going to put that boy on the biggest court.  But since Rafa was hogging the big court, that meant this guy was delivered to my court...



In case you don't follow tennis enough to recognize faces or have never seen a Gillette commercial, that is Roger F'ing Federer.  Probably the greatest tennis player of all time.  And I saw him.  In the flesh.  With my own two little eyes.  For about 40 minutes or however long it took him to dismantle his opponent.  It was the best, I still can't believe we got so lucky.  When you watch him on TV, he always looks really smooth and graceful...but it was 20x more apparent in person.  His opponent moved really well, but looked like a drunk Clydesdale in comparison. 

Afterwards we watched Andy Murray vs. Marcos Baghdatis, and then headed to some of the outer courts to watch a few women's matches.  One girl in particular caught our attention due to her super manly serving grunts.  The following week, that same Francesca "Grunthouse" Schiavone went on to win the whole tournament, oops!

So after a rocky first day in Paris, the second day at the tennis was awesome.  The third day we spent flying through the city on bicycles.  Macaroons were consumed.  Eurovision finals were watched.  All in all, a really good trip considering I never wanted to be there!

As far as returning someday to see the catacombs that I should have rightfully seen, don't count on it.  If I want to see dead Frenchmen, I can just watch a Gerard Depardieu movie.  (He's dead, right?)