Summer trip recommendations? (U.S. only)
 

Ah, it's that time of the year when I gOTTA MoVE & SEE THINGS.

spent a month in dc & new york with the wife in march but now following that excellent french tradition i'm taking off on my own for a couple of weeks. i need to explore unknown places.

thinking of late june-early july as i have to be back mid-july for a work project.

any locations in the U.S. you'd recommend?

i like smelly cities, broken people wondering in the streets, quirky customs, beautiful strange women, old bookstores, clouds, hole-in-the wall eateries with spectacular dishes, fresh seafood, anonymous crowds.

occasionally i enjoy nature but it bores me quickly. except for the sea.

did i say i currently live in new mexico? enough desert! enough!

i hate yuppies, malls, pavement that expands into the horizon & excessive heat. chain shops, chain anything (unless im the one with the handcuff keys :D), and anorexic women.

well? any advice? suggestions? experiences? i'm not asking for places to stay btw. i'd rather be vivisected rather than have to stay with any of you fools. :D

Pittsburgh is a dump. You'd love it.

Things in Pittsburgh-
The Warhol Museum
The Carnegie Museum (great Dino display)
The Pittsburgh Zoo
A shit-ton of bridges
the incline
The old armory
Heinz Ketchup
some cool little breweries/sausage houses
A few cool dumpy coffee shops, vegan restaurants/venues, and art galleries
The Strip District- Ethnic food stores, street vendors, Primanti Brother's subs. It is a little dumpy place that is fun
The South Side- long strip of cool places, cool 50's diner with really great milkshakes here
Oakland- Hospitals and Colleges
Some good pizza shops
One of the US's largest Jewish communities- Squirrel Hill (cool town too)
Point State Park
To the north about 35 miles- McConnell's Mill and Moraine State Park (I'd suggest McConnell's Mill)
To the south- Laurel Caverns

dont go to chicago its the most dull place on earth.

go to colorado and see the rockies thats nice.

oh hm pittsburgh does sound interesting, except that i've been there already (loved the warhol museum). i'd like to go there again, but not sure if i could stay 2 weeks, and then around the east coast it gets goddamn hot & sticky in summer. (but i could go to baltimore as well....) no, see, i want to go to a new place. but then again-- i could go there & rent a cheap room & write for a month. hm.... tempting...

jonboy-- i live 3 hours south of colorado (if not less). fuck nature!!!!!!!!! :D

well, actually a little hiking trip would not hurt. i might actually do that on the side-- but only on the side. after 3 days of looking at rock after rock after rock im ready for crowded coffeeshops, panhandling junkies, decaying buildings and unheard-of cuisines.

anybody else love their town as much as spectraljulian? i'd like to hear...

Total road trip. See the entire country form end to end. That's what I want to do. I want to start out here in the North East and travel all over until I end up in Northern California (weed country).

go to san francisco then. hang around with the folks in the tenderloin.

http://www.tenderloin.net/

Come to St. Paul and got to End Times fest. I won't be there but it will be a good time. I'll probably be in town and all teh boardies going could hang out with me.

oh.... san francisco... now THAT looks like a town i would enjoy... hm... wonder how hot it gets in the summer

haydenasche-- end of times? oh yes i thought of that, and i might go, although i think time will go on forever-- i hope its not some biblical shit, ha hah.

watch out about hanging out with me though. im a tremendous pervert. :D

I would tell you to visit Omaha but there really isn't a whole lot to see or do here.

The College World Series take place here every June if you follow college baseball. Awesome party atmosphere for about two weeks.

oh... omaha... hm... sounds like it could be worse than new mexico. though not sure if that's possible :D

well i wouldnt mind driving past omaha & eating a big juicy steak. but then i'd keep driving... towards... somewhere!

---

kingcoffee-- about the total road trip, i'm afraid 2 weeks would be too short. im more of a digger: i like to get my nose buried in things & inhale deeply until completely intoxicated. i've driven from dc to new mexico from new mexico to california from new mexico to new york & back, etc. i'm kinda looking for a place to dig in for a bit-- get a feel for the place etc.

oh i miss baltimore. maybe i'll just go back. the sticky air with the smell of crabs in it...

San Fransico or Seattle.

fuck, thanks for the ideas. im done working for the day so i gotta get out of here.

but please keep posting!! i'll read the stuff tomorrow morning.

and you live in nm? why don't you just cross the border? from what i hear mexico is an entire country of ^.

then for extra fun you could come home in the back of a semi.

ha hah. no, US ONLY please. if i could live the country right now i'd go to europe & never come back. :p

(i fucking love france)

--
but seriously...

??? anybody else here loves their u.s. hometowns?

DC->Baltimore->Philly->NYC->Boston->Go home and weep

oh.... sounds amazing, yes, weep-worthy. but i have to say:

i lived in dc for years
i had a girlfriend in baltimore
i had a gilfriend from philly
i haven't had girlfriend from further up north but
i just spent 2 weeks in new york
boston alone could do it but perhaps provincetown is more appealing for its glorious fauna

however i've never been out west.

i'm thinking hey alex got the right idea.

anybody here loves san francisco or seattle? descriptions, locations, traditions? please share...

I'm from just outside L.A. Don't go to L.A.

Malibu or Laguna, though. They're nice. If you like nice. Not a lot of bookstores, probably, but the boardwalks are full of bizarre people. I don't even like the beach, but I love boardwalks.

oh i went to hellay last year for arthurfest. hollywood was nice on weekends, when local people were shopping in farmers markets & just hanging out. (tourists on the other hand are worse than pig vomit). went to the beaches-- malibu, zuma, and the cheesy one with the ferris wheel, and then venice. i fucking love the beach, i love swimming in the sea, and the dried up salt on the skin, and the plankton smell.

how about SAN FRANCISCO or SEATTLE though? i think im narrowing it down to those...

--

ps- and what about the rest of the northwest? PORTLAND maybe?

Go to Portland! It's an awesome city, and the people are great. Then drive out to the Oregon coast and find Rockaway Beach. Oregon has the most amazing coastline. Plus, you mentioned liking fresh seafood and there are a ton of places to get fresh seafood right on the coast, I gorged myself!

Come to Alabama. There's a spongebob blow-up doll on top of burger king, pushing 20ft, just begging to be destroyed.

ah, pax americana, that sounds awesome. i should inquire more about this.


ha hah, now THAT i can do in a weekend. you got any explosives? :D

Explosives?
I plan on taken a shotgun to it's head.

we need a big one. i guess getting one must not be difficult in alabama. ha ha ha. what after-- drink moonshine? :D

oh i gotta go. work calls.

SF, Seattle, and Portland all seem cool as hell. I've never been any farther west than Cleveland......fucked up in Cleveland.

hm... sf/ seattle/ portland...

i say yes!

GIMME SOME INFORMATION PEOPLE. any of you live there, or do you live in lame places & are hence forced to spend a lot of time on the internet? :p

I was asleep when we drove through San Francisco. Sorry, man.

sf is really fun...its a toss up for me though between sf and nyc

all of the cities mentioned previously are nice....too nice for an expedition of this sort really. if you want to lock into a strangely dirty city to marvel at odd local customs and start the great american novel, anchoragealaska is the perfect choice

if you're gonna be in the Northwest, you might want to take a look around Spokane. "might" is the key word here. it's a fairly nice city; some cool stores, nice downtown, big river right through the middle. maybe on the way back or something.

AVOID IDAHO. IT'S BORING IF YOU DON'T LIKE NATURE.

hah hah thanks for your help and recommendations people!!

kegmama it would be fun to meet again-- you gotta get me high this time :D

i spoke w/ a friend from seattle last night & so i think i'm going to make that my base-- maybe fly out, maybe drive, maybe take a train--

but then... then... the goddamn lineup in the END OF TIMES festival is awesome!!! i think i might start there & then fly out...

im feel like goddamned confucius... :confused:

yeah man come to OREGON!
just avoid salem :) hah

powells is amazing, the art museum is really nice. on the surface portland seems like a glossy hipster paradise but there are soooo many different sides to portland. just about a place for everyone.

eugene is nice to, it has the culture but isnt as big as portland. defiantly go west to the coast. lincoln city, pacific city, cape kawanda is my fav.

and avoid eastern oregon, unless you are feeling home sick

central oregon is very nice, its where all the resorts and such are. sisters is a very small homely town, close to bend which is another great city. you could stay at black butte.

if you end up coming to salem, you could see where one flew over the cukoos nest was filmed, but thats about as exicting as it gets here.

oh and john fahey's grave.

thank you guys, again. ha ha kegmama i did suspect you were blazed with the big sunglasses and what not :D -- yeah i did post that somewhere & also i met her later & gave her my library card (which i had used as guitar pick), ha ha, as an apology or homage, she is a lovely girl-- loves books too so that had a peculiar symbolism.

PINKY PROMISE: i'll just say that when i meet you next time. ha hah!! remember ;)

thurstonito: i think i'll actually go to oregon man! i'll make seattle my base & go from there. likely to go to oregon at least for a few days. i'm thinking of bringing my bicycle along as all this is bike-friendly land-- i think they used to make bikes & biking clothes in eugene... i forget the name somehting with B... but anyway...

damn, thanks guys. things are shaping up nicely on this front.

bike clothes are for queers.

I SECOND THIS.

Daytona Beach, Florida. You have an eighty percent chance of running into me.