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Seattle

  

Exploring Seattle was something I’d been itching to do again since I was ten years old and saw my first wino ever on a street corner in Pioneer Square. This trip, I actually got the chance. Today was reserved largely for downtown and the Seattle Center, home of the Space Needle which was celebrating its 40th anniversary this month. Yes, we ate up there, and yes, I sampled the special 1962 menu for $19.62.

I also noticed that the Pacific Science Center (a former pavillion from the 1962 Worlds Fair) bore a disturbing resemblance to the former World Trade Center.

 

The food was good (despite what we’d been told) and the view was, of course, amazing, and neither of us seemed particularly embarrassed to be a tourist.

 

After doing the needle, we got on the monorail and headed downtown. Interestingly, after forty years, Seattle may be on the verge of actually expanding the monorail to something more than a mile-long run between two places only tourists ever want to go. We’ll see.

 

Once downtown, we walked through Pike Place Market (where I had good luck at finding four dollar books) and saw the original Starbuck’s (no comments please). I realized that my allergies were kicking in bigtime and began talking like Brenda Vaccaro to stay in character.

 

 

We met up with Cho in Capital Hill about 8:00 and proceded to dinner at a good Thai place which probably had a name, but I don’t remember it. We also toured the neighborhood, visited some really cool bar (with a name I also can’t remember, but it had something to do with “bad juju”) and posed with the Jimmy Hendrix statue. I also blew my nose a lot, which was no doubt becoming increasingly annoying to all who came in contact with me.

 

Liked Cho. Liked the view from her fire escape. Opted against visiting the nearby bathhouse…

Afterward, we went on another long and semi-aimless drive through the streets of Seattle in search of neon signs, motels, diners, and maybe beer…

 

Seattle

Breakfast was at a place called The Aurora (on Aurora Avenue, oddly enough). It was a great place: a former Sambo’s, with pretty much all its original decor as intact as it was about 1963. I was excited.

 

We had pancakes, cigarettes, and videotape for breakfast. All was well.

 

 

We drove around Seattle a bit, seeing the famous Hat and Boots, the University District (including its Safeway, of course), and more. I think we were both pretty obsessed with Seattle by this point, although I’d pretty much seen it coming and wasn’t surprised. Aside from a slightly lower sales tax rate (offset by the lack of state income tax) and a few restaurants I’d miss, I’m still not convinced that there’s anything much I like more about san Francisco.

In other words, yes, I’d move in a heartbeat if I had a job…

 

In the afternoon, we met up with Mark’s friend Andrea in Kent, and took a tour of the more southern parts od Highway 99, toward Tacoma. It was a good drive, and it was great to meet Andrea. I only worry that I came across a bit like a heroin addict between the growing sniffles and the antihistamine I took against doctor’s orders. And if either of you can offer better pictures of yourselves than the crappy ones I got, please send them along…

We went through Tacoma and across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (a newer version, not this one) and then circled back for dinner. Mmmm. Burger is good…

 

I think it was on the way back to the Motel 6 that we decided to stay another night. This decided, we went back out into the night to see more…

 

We hit Pioneer Square to see if the Underground Tour would be an option on Friday (it would) and made the rounds again. Have I mentioned yet how much more fun this trip was than my last attempt at Seattle?

Seattle

 

Woke up. Fell out of bed. Had visions of Beth’s Cafe in the head. Mark had been alerted to this place and its six- and twelve-egg omelettes before we left. Visiting was a necessity. Breakfast was quite good and cheap. And the “spatulas of the world” series on the wall was a special treat. As was the loud-mouthed cook who shouted at us when we came in. we decided that he was going to be our houseboy when we move to Seattle.

Today was to be somewhat agenda-less, which allowed us to roam the city freely. Actually, there were a couple of agenda items, the first of which was a search for the Fremont Bridge Troll, which allegedly lives under a bridge. It was a valiant effort, but we never found the damned thing. Probably because we were under the wrong bridge.

 

After Fremont, we drove around in the increasing rain (it was nice to get a feel for what the northwest is REALLY like after a week of sunshine) and finally landed downtown for agenda item #2: the Seattle Underground Tour. I took this tour at age 10 and really loved it. I loved it at 37 too. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will mention that it’s all about the stories and that it doesn’t photograph terribly well.

 

We also hit Metsker’s Maps and wandered around Pioneer Square a little. I like Pioneer Square; gentrified as it may be, it still seems like Skid Row too, which is very appropriate since the very term “skid row” had its genesis here. I saw my first wino in Pioneer Square et the tender age of 10.

 

We looked at the spot where the Pergola was (and will be again, evidently) and had pizza.

 

 

Last night in Seattle, and there was much ground to cover. We covered Bellevue (a very odd place) and both the floating bridges (very odd structures) and then dorve through the University District and Ballard pondering dinner.

 

We settled on a Dick’s Drive-In north of Ballard for dinner. Interesting place; in just five minutes it went from seeming relatively uncrowded to being swarmed by flocks of Mormon-looking teenagers. The whole thing was so very wholesome. I sort of hada desire to start making out with Mark in the parking lot.

 

After dinner, we looked around Ballard some more and visited two Safeways in a desperate search for Funyuns and other road supplies for Saturday’s very long drive. Then we headed down for one last look at downtown Seattle by night.

 

Seattle to SF

 

This was going to be a long, long day. Due to our extra day in Seattle, we were pondering the idea of driving all the way home without an overnight stop. 820 miles of freeways, mountains, Portland, Redding, and more.

 

Back through Washington and back through Oregon (where I finally managed to photograph the Failing Pedestrian Bridge) and back into Eugene (which may be the single whitest place on earth). When we passed from Oregon into California, Oregon thanked us once again. I love a polite state.

 

Long drives home after long trips are always a little depressing. You have all the work of driving with none of the fun to look forward to. Hate ’em. But I love that Mark apparently has a masochistic streak which kept me from having to do any of the actual driving. I netertained him as best I could.

 

By the time we hit Buz’ Crab in Redding, we were pretty much worn out. And we still had a good 3 1/2 hours left to go. But lots of fried fish offered that extra bit of strength necessary to complete the trip.

 

We made it home. Alive and somewhat worse for the wear. We slept. There may have been dreams of Portland and Seattle, but we were probably too tired to notice…

To the Sierra

A road trip was necessary. We both wanted to see snow and pretend we didn’t live in San Francisco. We succeeded. Friday night took us to Placerville, where we decided to rest up and explore before seeing the snow farther uphill on Saturday…

 

Dogs and special service along the way…

 

As it turned out, we didn’t stay in either of these motels…

Nor this one…

 

But we did eat at both these restaurants…

Our motel had the narrowest double beds in the free world, I think, but made it for it by also having full cable and free pastries in the morning…

Placerville and Tahoe

I didn’t sleep well (even after staking out my own miniature bed), but we got out at a reasonable hour and had breakfast at the corner diner, marvelling at the light fixtures, the space-age sign, and the cheap food. Afterward, we speny way too much money on books and old road maps and other stuff downtown before driving up Highway 50 for a quick look at the snow. We ended up going all the way to Lake Tahoe, with Mark clutching the wheel to avoid black ice all the way back…

Saturday night’s dinner was pizza at this semi-redneck sports bar and pizza parlor, which was at least slightly more appealing than it sounds. After dinner, we explored Placerville some more, watched a little TV, and slipped into our respective miniature beds…

 

Historic spot, historic town…

 

He drove. I took pictures…

 

Fredo is buried somewhere in that lake…

 

Mmmm. Neon…

 

Daunting mountains…

 

The Placerville Penis. I think it was supposed to be more yule than tool, but I’m not sure…

Home

Sunday morning brought more free pastries, a Mexican breakfast, and laundry with the locals (which is fast becoming a vacation tradition). We headed back to san Francisco early in the afternoon, stopping in Sacramento for a Wal-Mart run and in Isleton for a crawdad melt. Of course, we made it home in time for The Simpsons, even though we were too tired to care very much…

It was a good weekend…

Off to LA

Gone for the weekend, fleeing the bears, fireworks, and assorted chants and clichés in favor of cafeterias, Googie, and the heretofore unvisited Hollywood branch of Amoeba Records.

I love Los Angeles. This is not a sentiment which I’ve ever been embarrassed to admit, despite the fact that residents of San Francisco are not supposed to speak such heresy. But for a series of coincidences in 1991, I might be living there rather than here now anyway, and sometimes I still feel the slightest twinge of regret at my decision.

Yes, I realize that the perpetual sunshine and the relative lack of fog or rain would most likely make me suicidal. I understand that the lack of a real pedestrian focus (although there’s more of one than some people realize) might be annoying.

But LA is a city of magic and of dreams, and it holds a fascination for me like nowhere else, except perhaps Chicago and Detroit. It’s a place where I don’t particularly want to live, but where I could spend untold months exploring without getting bored.

Oddly enough, I’d never before had ample opportunity to do this exploring. My first trip was a quick affair, a drive-by on the way to San Diego in 1991. Later trips were always connected with work, either mine or that of a significant other, and never seemed to allow me any time to do what I wanted to do, see what I wanted to see, etc.

Against our better judgment, we left on the Friday afternoon which began President’s Day weekend. It was also Valentine’s Day. Our original goal was to stop by Fresno and see Mark’s sister, but we learned on the way down that she was out of town, so we headed straight for Bakersfield, with a stop in Coalinga and another for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at an Arby’s in a truck stop.

This trip would be different. There was no real agenda…

Bakersfield to LA

After a Saturday morning breakfast at my favorite Bakersfield diner (discovered six years ago on a trip to Las Vegas), we explored downtown for a little while, looking at interesting buildings and wandering through the remains of a classic Woolworth’s store which now houses an antique mall.

 

We stopped at Long’s for previsions and cash, and made our way toward the Grapevine, hoping that the mudslide from a couple of days before had been cleared. Fortunately, it had.

 

We had one of those mileage milestones near the summit, which was the most eventful part of the Grapevine leg. Finally, we arrived in Greater Los Angeles, which is to say that we were within 40 or 50 miles of the center of town. We passed Magic Mountain and all the assorted beige suburbs, and finally the freeways started getting bigger and more intense.

We arrived at the lovely Motel 6 – LAX in time to realize that we’d be sharing it with about a hundred youth soccer teams. This wouldn’t have been to much of a problem except that this particular Motel 6 was a former Howard Johnson’s hotel, about 10 stories tall with only elevator access to the rooms. Unsupervised kids and elevators are not a good combination. But there was a king-size bed and a balcony overlooking an off-ramp. It was good…

 

Saturday night dinner was at Clifton’s Cafeteria, which was a high spot on the agenda which we didn’t really have. I’d been here once before and it’s a most amazing place, the surviving link in a chain of cafterias from the 1930s. Clifton’s is a wonderful joint, with most of those cafeteria classics I miss from the south (except for the collard greens and fried okra), and I don’t come to LA without visiting if possible.

 

After dinner, we roamed around downtown LA for a while. Lots of people tend to forget that there actually IS a downtown LA, but it’s there in its faded glory. The department stores and most of the theatres are closed, but it’s still a lively place, with shops catering to a largely Latino clientele and at least one really cool rock-goth-skate shop where I was pretty excited to see that Vision Street Wear is back.

 

We headed back to the Motel 6 to, ummm, eliminate the heavy dinner, and then wandered back out toward Hollywood and the LA branch of Amoeba Music. The San Francisco and Berkeley branches will never be quite the same for me; this place is a huge mecca for music AND video, and we spent most of the vacation budget here. It was truly amazing…

 

Further driving ensued (Hollywood Boulevard on a Saturday night is a nightmare, by the way) and somehow we ended up going all the way to Burbank and Toluca Lake, where we had late-night food at the perfectly-preseved Bob’s Big Boy I’d visited once before with Duncan.

Then it was back to the Motel 6. The soccer kids were, alas, not asleep yet…

Covering Lots of Ground

 

Sunday morning. Breakfast required. Not an easy task, it seems. We tried Pann’s in Inglewood, which had an hour-plus wait. We tried Johnie’s at Wilshire and Fairfax (across from the old May Co. where Jan Brady bought the silver platter), but it was closed for good. We finally landed at a thoroughly generic IHOP in Hollywood.

 

Now fed, we tooled through Hollywood again, stopping by Amoeba so Mark could return something and I could take more pictures.

 

Afterward, we took a quick drive through the Hollywood Hills, visited the last Mayfair Market in existance on the planet, and headed for the sight (site?) I’d been craving all weekend. It was an unassuming little house on an unassuming little street in North Hollywood. It told the story of a lovely lady…

Yeah, you know the house…

 

We covered a lot of ground on this particular Sunday, most of it by freeway. Mark was itching to see “the stack”, and once we arrived, I knew why. It was quite amazing. It’s kind of nice to spend time in a city which is proud of its freeways rather than ashamed of them…

 

We also popped by LAX to see the Exposition Building, and to a Fry’s because, well, that’s what we do on the weekends, even in LA.

 

Being a freak for old shopping centers, I wanted to see the remains of the Braodway-Crenshaw center, an early example of an extremely well-designed center dating from about 1950. The two anchors were still standing, with the Broadway store having been turned into a Wal-Mart and the May Co. now a Robinsons-May. I was amazed to see it was still rather thriving, albeit in the midst of a suburb which was not exactly as middle-class as it had been fifty years ago.

Actually, the whole of Crenshaw Boulevard is an interesting cruise for those of us interested in old commercial architecture.

 

For the evening, we headed to Orange County, planning to eat in a restuarant at Knott’s Berry Farm which Mark remembered from his youth. Alas, it was not quite the same restaurant anymore, so we looked in vain for any interesting Googie architecture left in Anaheim, bought matching Snoopy mugs with our names on them, and went on our way.

 

We took a long surface route back home, stopping for dinner at a small Mexican place in La Habra, and looking for more neon. About half way home, I realized we were very close to the oldest operating McDonald’s in America, so we had to stop by there too. Afterward, it was back to the Motel 6 for our last night in the king-size bed.