3/12/23

This week has been eventful. I know within the last few weeks I haven't talked about fashion a lot, and that's honestly because I don't feel like there isn't a lot to discuss. New shows feel old, the archive feels over-exposed, and comments and agendas feel like an echo chamber. I love fashion, and I truly, honestly do, but nothing that I have seen recently even feels notable. Maybe I'm not seeing what I need to be seeing, but part of the intent of this blog was to discuss the items and symbols within the industry that we have all seen, so going out of my way to find things to talk about feels counter-productive to my goals. That being said I'm 100% sure I'm wrong, and there is plenty to talk about, but at the end of the day, I'm bored of talking about it. I'm bored of the same three aesthetics, I'm bored of Bella Hadid, and most of all I'm bored of what everyone has to say about it, thus I don't want to contribute. I will talk about fashion when fashion produces something I feel inclined to give my two cents on, until then I guess we'll have to wait for the MET. 

Because of this thinking, despite a rise in passion for my designs and ideas, I've felt very short-winded in my industry, seeing the same things, and hearing the same comments, I've noticed I've become significantly less enthused. For a while now Id has been talking about how to fix this, how to rekindle my desire to experience and contribute towards the things I know I care about. The main thing that I knew I needed was a break. I talked about this with going home for Christmas, and how leaving can allow me to appreciate coming back a lot more, not seeing things you see every day and then seeing them again. So, I started planning a trip. In October, I began researching how to accomplish any kind of vacation in the financial position I'm in, what can I afford, and what I want Vs. what is realistic and what will be satisfying. Growing up, most of my experiences with traveling were via very cheap, very long road trips once a year. My dad always thought travel was important, especially for raising kids today, so once a year he and my stepmother would hoard all of my mom's child support and spend it driving my sister and me through Florida, Maine, Vermont, Mississippi, Montana, camping on a tarp in the cheapest campsite we could find, hiking all day, driving to the next location and doing it again, until by the time I graduate Highschool I was fortunate enough to have made it to 45 out of 50 states, and a few territories in Canada. Now, we never had a lot of money, we had enough to survive, but when I say we were "comfortable", I don't mean it in the way rich people mean it in that all their needs are met 100% of the time and they just don't want to admit that they're rich. We were comfortable in the way that we weren't going hungry, cars and houses were in okay condition but yet to be paid off, and anywhere we needed or wanted to go to we only ever drove. So now that I'm on my own, and now with an unquenchable desire to travel, I had to figure out how to budget as well as my Dad did. 

Originally, the plan I made was Colorado. I would fly into Denver, flights from Phoenix to Denver were around $30 at the time, then I would rent a cabin (if someone came with me) or a campsite if I was alone, and would take a train or bus towards central Colorado and would hitchhike from there to any other location I wanted to go. As I told others of my plan, my friends began encouraging me and helping with ideas, and eventually, Katie said she wanted to come with me. After that, the plan began evolving, becoming more realistic. Luckily, Kate has a car, and was only a state away from Colorado, so she decided she could drive. I started frantically researching, finding campsites, Airbnbs, toll-free roads, and beautiful National Parks both that I had seen and not seen that I wanted to show Kate. The plan as I had made it, was to drive up through Arizona and stop the first night, camping out by Mesa Verda to see the dwellings. Wed then drive East through San Juan National Forest, then spend the night in the Great Sand Dunes National Park, hiking into our campsite in the dunes. Then we'd get an Airbnb in Colorado Springs, drive around, and see a few cool hikes and tourist spots in that area, before pretty much heading home from there. As time went on, we came to the terrible realization that Kate's car would most certainly not survive the trip. Thus was born the West Coast Road Trip of 2023.

On Friday, March 3rd, at 1:00 PM Arizona Time, Kate and I embarked on a road trip that neither of us will ever forget, whether we try to or not. We flew into Oregon first, to pick up Kate's new car, and spend the night with her family. We planned to spend the weekend, A, showing me her hometown, and stocking up on anything we would need for the rest of the week. We went to thrift stores and antique shops, mostly just to see the life Kate grew up in, but we also both got some sick ass hats (see photo journal). And even though we didn't stay long, nor was it necessarily a part of the trip itself, Oregon was probably one of my favorite moments. Seeing Kate's hometown, and getting to get a glimpse into the childhood of one of my closest friends that I didn't get the chance to grow up with, felt very special to me. I think part of why college has been so hard for me to navigate, socially at least, has been the disconnect of all of our lives. Until college all my friends had known me since I was at least 14, my best friends and I have known each other since we were five/six/and seven. So being able to be a part of her home life even for a few days was cool to me. A bonding experience if ever I had one. Finally, Sunday morning, we drove. We packed up the car with enough food, coffee, energy drinks, and weed to last us the week, and drove 304 miles up through Oregon and Washington, and stopped for the night in Camano Island. As annoying as I'm sure I was on the drive, God I was so excited. This trip was mostly single-night stops, and a majority of our sightseeing was through the window of the car, and you better believe I was following our drive on the map to know exactly what I was looking at. Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Hawaii, and Alaska are the only states I had left to visit at the time, and Washington was probably one of the highest up on that list. Seeing Mt. Rainer, even from a distance, is such a beautifully humbling experience. The entire drive, not even just to Washington but the trip in general, sheds so much perspective on how much life there is to experience. I, and most likely a few others reading this, struggle so much with 'time'. How much time do I have left, how do I use it to the best of my ability, how much time am I losing? And I think a huge contributor to this is how sheltered in I feel so much of the time. Walking the same route to class and work every day, seeing the same people, and sleeping in the same room, I forget how much more there is to my life beyond what I experience. Once we arrived at our cute cabin Airbnb, the first thing I noticed was that, at the end of our yard, there was a cliff dropping directly into the bay, and across that bay, were the peaks of the Olympic Mountains. I was in awe. For probably an hour I lay in the hammock we had and just stared, stared at the pinecones lying beneath me, stared at the way the pines on the trees above me shuttered in the breeze, the very cold breeze, and stared at the horizon, trying my hardest to make out every nook and cranny of the Olympic before the clouds would cover them the following morning. That night would mark one of two nights throughout that week that Kate and I didn't share a bed, and we probably should have because, in my drug-induced slumber, I fell asleep on Reese's chocolate, staining myself and my clothing for the reminded of the trip. 

The next morning, we drove the longest drive I believe in the entire trip. 644 miles down the coast of Washington, then Oregon, before landing in Eureka, California by 8:30 PM that night. We stopped maybe twice. Honestly as beautiful and amazing as the views were, I think the most amazing, awe-inspiring, impressive aspect of this trip was Kates will power to drive the entire time. She is a beast in a Fairies body and deserves all the appreciation for doing this for me. Beyond everything else, the drive from Camano to Eureka was probably one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Gorgeous coasts turned into sprawling mountains landscaped, before shaping into tight windy turns in Redwood National Park. I couldn't help from geeking out, the sheer size of those trues is so fucking amazing, it's amazing they exist, and it's amazing how old they are, it's especially amazing to me because, while Kate had seen them multiple times, coming from the East coast, I had been dying to see the redwoods for years, and when I finally did it was still just as cool as I had imagined it. Genuinely I "Nature is so cool" more times than anything else on this trip, just seeing how diverse, how small and how big everything is, simply because life evolved to make it that way, it made my year. The next morning we explored Eureka a little, went to a coffee shop, bookstore, and witchy herbal shop, and saw the Green Castle and Pink Lady, and the entire time all I could think about was how cool everything is. I grew up in Pennsylvania. I live in Arizona. And within those 20 years, there was this little witchy town in Northern California that I had never heard of with people who grew up thinking it completely mundane and who were probably longing to see the huge sprawling lakes in Pennsylvania that I grew up thinking just as mundane. The second coolest thing, after the Redwoods, was the house we stayed in. Kate had family that lived there who were kind enough to let us crash for the night. This house was the coolest, most artistic, Art Deco x Mid-Century-inspired thing I had ever seen. Lush green carpets, tables that looked like clocks, and just outside the dining room window, miles, and miles of Redwoods. Then came the most impactful portion of our journey, for me and probably also Kate, the 271-mile drive to SAN FRANCISCO. I used to watch Emma Chamberlain, Stitch was my favorite cartoon, and "wow, San Francisco" (a line from stitch) was quoted very regularly in my household for years. Just like the Redwoods, San Fran before this trip felt mystic, unreachable, a place only meant to be seen through the lives of others. After spending not even 24 hours there, I'm fully convinced I will be moving there when I graduate. As much as I love New York City, we all know how long I've been dying to move there, San Francisco, geographically, has got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the country. The hills, the bay, the ocean, the bridges, the architecture style, the urban planning, everything there feels so shared, so communal with the people living there. The people were kind, and the drivers were courteous, and although there were "anti antisemitic" billboards that refer to Jewish people as "Jews", still don't know how to feel about that, it felt like a very welcoming place, especially considering its a very expensive city in California. We spent the morning exploring. Seeing the neighborhoods, and the locals, and imagining what life in San Fran would look like for us. 

After San Francisco, we had two more nights to spend on the road before going home. Originally, we planned to be home Wednesday night or Thursday morning, but a few days into the trip we got a text from our friends saying they got an Airbnb in Flagstaff and wanted us to come with, but they booked it for Thursday night, one night longer than we had planned to be on the road. The cool thing about Kate is that she's a cool-ass bitch, so, we extended the trip a day. This left us with one unplanned night and about a day and a half to plan it. We were in San Francisco Wednesday morning, and we had to be in Flagstaff Thursday night, the drive was around 12 hours from point A to point B, and that's a big ask from Kate. She thought it would be cool to spend the night in Vegas, I, being raised to hate Capitalism, despise Vegas, so it was my brilliant idea to book an RV Airbnb in Death Valley. In retrospect, we were fine, there wasn't anything actually wrong with the area, but at 8:00 PM, driving two straight hours on a two-lane road in the middle of ass-fuck nowhere in the Nevada desert, and then arriving at an RV parked in some one's back yard with two very loud guard dogs, neither Kate nor I were very eager to stay long. I will say I loved the sights, as tired as I am of the desert since I already live in one, sunsets and night skies in the desert are unmatched, and the rolling hills made of red, orange, and yellow igneous rock formations are objectively gorgeous to see. We made the most of it though, it was Kate's Dad's birthday, and we wanted to do something for him so we got firewood and attempted to make a cute little bonfire in his honor. It didn't work, even a little bit, and I know objectively it was sad, wanting to do something for him and it not going well hit us in a soft spot, but I enjoyed it. We felt human, in that moment, and if nothing else I think Kate's dad would've appreciated the thought, and the moments we set aside to think about and do something for him, regardless of if the wood was remotely burned. 

I dont want to talk about Flagstaff. It was beautiful, and it was amazing spending the night with my friends, I think we all bonded, and I at least have never really been a part of group plans like that, and was so so so happy to have the ending to the trip that we had. Above everything else, there were definitely some rough moments, but I got what I wanted out of it and I hope Kate felt the same. Sitting in the car with one person for twelve hours a day doing nothing but screaming the lyrics to songs I didn't know all of the lyrics to. Seeing sights I had never seen, smoking a cigarette with the backdrop of Sound of Music-esque rolling green hills. Spending a week with someone so ungodly important to me. I genuinely could not have asked for better memories. I'm so so grateful I got these experiences, and with the person I got to experience them with, especially considering I did not drive a single mile, Kate genuinely just made lifelong memories for me and I don't know if she even knows how appreciative I am to have them. 

This is part one.