The Girls and Boy are Back

Back from California- wonderful trip, if you excise the driving. SF, fun as usual, a little tough with the girls, since it's not the most kid friendly city in the world, but we made do. Went to the Yerba Buena Gardens, super kid fun zone. Also went to the Exploratorium and everyone's minds were blown. We could have spent all day there, but we had to rush off to naps and Ryan's wedding.

When we first got to town we went to our little "cottage", located in the Castro. It's run by this guy Dennis Peron who is a big medical marijuana activist, was apparently buddies with Harvey Milk (although Ryan thinks all the pics of them together is simple photoshoppery). The cottage we stayed in was a weird cavernous love shack with little natural light, and right outside the cave was a black light garden. The place was insane, a SF townhouse with 9 separate sleeping quarters, all stacked on top of a grow operation. We kept a good eye on the girls. That's kinda how all of SF went, really.

Got together with my cousin Alexis who is super-awesome and who I only get to see every 4 years apparently. We had lunch in North Beach then went over to City Lights. I hung out in the alley next to city lights with the stroller and bags and took pictures of the people through glinting windows. There's a bar next to City Lights that has this written across the top of the entrance: "I've been itching to get away from... PORTLAND, OREGON!" That gave me a good chuckle.

The thing about the alley next to city lights is that there were no cars allowed, it was paved with cobblestone and had murals and sunlight all over the place. I could have stayed there all day, soaking in the sun, listening to the people talk, not worrying about getting run over... it was one of my favorite places in SF so far.

The wedding was great, Ryan and Carrie looked very happy and Ryan choked up when he was speaking his thoughts about Carrie. It almost made me cry, it was so damn cute. All of their friends were wonderful and happy- it went off without a hitch and everyone had a great time, including the children, who danced to klezmer music and ate yummy Bi-Rite cake all night. Satie eventually couldn't hack it anymore and opted to pass out in a chair in the middle of the ballroom. Everyone that walked past would peek over and smile at her sleeping little figure scrunched up in a ball.

We took off Sunday, headed over the Golden Gate and drove up to Eureka to stay with Marcy Bruce, super-wonderful persona grata. Eureka was fun, the houses were beautiful in old town where we hung out and this horrific old house scared the pants off of me one night on the boardwalk.



I shot a bunch of film, so much, in fact, that I was glad to run out of film. Then, we hit the Redwoods! Dang. I missed about 20 wonderful shots when we stopped by Gold Beach. We found a little indenture for the girls to play in (we stopped at a windsurfer hang out- not a great idea for hanging out because... SURPRISE! that's where it's really windy!) but the girls were playing and in the background was this humoungous outcropping covered in velvety foliage that was whipping in the wind. It was a wonderful shot that I'm just going to have to store away in my mind.

Anyway, after another fucking 8 hours of driving we finally got back to our wonderful home that was still standing. The plants all seemed to like us being gone because when we got back the plants were thriving everywhere! Maybe I need to water them a little less.

Off into the world, be nice to yourselves and here's a little something to chew on, I know you guys need visual victuals:

More Pictures to come once the film is developed.