Mel & Lo take the west coast

This post is dedicated to all the haterz who said this trip would never happen.

Because IT HAPPENED. And in a big way.

For years, I have wanted to drive to Seattle from southern California, but I never had the flexibility with work or the money to do it. Solution? Save up a meager amount of money and then quit your job so you don't have to worry about getting shifts covered or your manager being mad at you. Don't you worry though, my parting with Intermountain Healthcare was an amicable one.

Anyway, my friend Lauren was the only one crazy enough to agree to go on this trip with me, and she volunteered her car. My car has a manual transmission and she doesn't know how to drive it (it's because she's Asian- her words, not mine), so we figured we would be better off with a car we could both drive since we would have so much road time.

If you want the short version of this trip, watch the video we made. Then you can decide if you want to read on or not. But you should read on. Because this post is funny. And you will like it. So just read it. Or at least tell me you did, ok?

We made it from Utah to Arizona to Nevada with no major mishaps.

Cue the semi truck tire. We were in Rancho Cucamonga, California, about an hour from our destination, when a giant black object appeared in the middle of our lane. I cannot explain what happened but it wasn't there one second, and the next second it WAS there. And that second just happened to be the second we went over the top of said giant black object (also... I was the one driving at this point. Perfect) I literally didn't have time to swerve, let alone even THINK to swerve. Plus, we were on like six lane highway so that probably wouldn't have been a good solution anyway.

So, I pulled over and got out to assess the damage and I saw this:

^^ Fluid POURING out the bottom of the car. Oh hell. And half the bumper was gone. And the passenger door was banged in. Eff. My. Life.

My first thought was that we should get away from the car because the liquid was obviously dangerous and the car was going to blow up. Well, Lauren's dad dispelled that idea instantly when Lauren called him and he told her to feel the liquid and smell it. It turned out to be wiper fluid.

^^ The wiper fluid tank had totally cracked

Ok, so the car probably wasn't going to blow up. But still, we were two young girls stranded on the side of the freeway at 11pm with little knowledge (ok if we're being honest...NO knowledge) of cars. Sooo naturally we called my parents and AAA. My parents crawled out of bed to come drive the hour to meet us and make sure everything was ok. Here is what went down during that hour:

1. This picture:

2. This semi truck pulled off the freeway right behind us. The driver introduced himself as Sal and asked if we hit the tire too. So THAT'S what the giant black object was. We said yes and he told us that he had also hit it and it messed up his truck. Sal had talked to the driver of the semi truck with the blowout and took these pictures of the perpetrator:

^^ The giant black object that appeared in the road. This thing DID DAMAGE.

So then we asked Sal if he knew anything about cars. He said somewhat, so we asked him to take a look at our car to assess the damage and see if it was drivable. He told us he thought it was just wiper fluid and that the bumper was just cosmetic and wouldn't prevent us from being able to drive the car. We started to feel slightly better about the situation.

3. Cue the cops. Two policemen pulled over and came to talk to us. One was really cool and the other was a little bit stuffy. The stuffy one told us we were probably driving too fast and outdriving our headlights. Here's the thing- The tire literally appeared out of nowhere and there were like 6 other cars pulled off on the side of the road who had also hit it. We came to the conclusion that one of those other cars must have hit it and sent it flying into our lane right as I went over it. So shut up, stuffy cop.

4. The cool cop looked at our car and told us he also thought it looked drivable.

5. The roadside assistance guy that AAA sent then joined the party.  His name was Tomas and he was one of my favorite people from our trip. He took a look at our car and checked all the fluid levels and some other wonky car stuff that I didn't understand. 

He told us we didn't need a tow, and that the car was totally drivable, but the bumper would drag on the ground a bit. We said "Are you sure?" and he said "Yeah, I've driven way sh*ttier cars than this. I'm Mexican!" Then he proceeded to tell us all about his trips to Vegas and EDC. 

6. We then proceeded to take selfies with Tomas. Zero shame.

By now, my parents were almost to us on the freeway. Since we had just had three somewhat seemingly knowledgeable men tell us the car was drivable, we decided to drive it to San Clemente, where my parents were renting a beach house for the week. My parents stayed close to us on the freeway to ensure that the car was functioning ok and that we wouldn't be stranded if something did happen.

After 12 long hours, we had finally made it to our first stop: San Clemente.

San Clemente was great. We had so much fun that we forgot to take pictures most of the time, but basically it was filled with lots of this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

^^ yes, I bought man-repellant (more commonly known as "overalls")

And basically Geico told us they would take care of everything with the car before we were scheduled to leave for our next destination three days later. Well, long story short, they were full of crap. We left San Clemente with half a bumper, no wiper fluid, and a passenger door that made all kinds of funny noises when we closed it. To top it all off, the bumper was zip-tied so that it wouldn't drag on the ground when we were driving.

Talk about janky.

But we were off! And we couldn't be happier.

First stop: Monterey, CA 

My brother discouraged us from taking Pacific Coast Highway all the way up because it takes like three hours longer. He said that even though it is pretty, we would get really bored and crazy and just want to be at our destination. So he suggested we take the 5 freeway and cut over to Monterey to do the 17 mile drive, a really scenic loop along the coast.

Next stop: Santa Cruz, CA

Our friend McCall was doing an internship in Palo Alto so she came to meet us on the boardwalk!

Santa Cruz boardwalk is definitely the place to go to people-watch. Lots of riffraff, lots of sleaze, lots of laughs.

We went on the Giant Dipper, aka the ricketiest roller coaster ever but we literally could not stop laughing the entire time. We snapped this shortly before it took off:

^^blurry, but you get the point

We spent the night at McCall's house in Menlo Park that evening which was so so fun.

Next stop: Lunch in Carmichael with Grandma Gunner.

^^ the worst selfie in the history of selfies. Do I even have lips?

She showed us around the retirement community that she recently moved into. Good to know Grandma is being well taken care of. We had fun catching up and telling her all about our travels! 

Next stop: Grass Valley, CA

Grass Valley, California is Lauren's hometown. She kept saying "Melissa, we are hicks. You are going to die laughing at my family."

And this was one of the first family pictures I saw in their house, so I knew I was in for a treat:

I couldn't have been more excited. We literally stayed in a trailer! Lauren's sister and her family were all in town visiting too, so there wasn't much space in the house. Luckily, Lauren's parents had recently bought a camping trailer, so that was where we stayed. It was so fun!

To add to the hick lifestyle we had taken up, we shot guns and rode ATVs.

We also visited Tahoe one day! 

 ^^ we stopped at a lookout point along the way

We rented bikes in Squaw Valley and planned to bike to Tahoe City, about 5 miles away.

We actually decided to swim in a river halfway there and then we turned around and rode back to Squaw Valley to return our bikes and drove to Tahoe City instead because it was like a million degrees outside.

We snapped about a bajillion pictures at the "Welcome to Nevada" sign, because why not?

^^ Lauren's brother, Michael joined us for our adventures in Tahoe

The next morning, we left bright and early.

Next stop: Portland, OR

^^ more pics at the state border...obviously

The drive through northern California and Oregon was one of the most breathtaking things I have ever seen. 

Also, let's just talk about the first time we had to have someone else pump our gas. We were trying to figure out how to do the pump for like two minutes when the worker finally came out, took one sorry look at us, and muttered a quick "You're in Oregon" before snatching the gas nozzle from us. Haha.

Because traffic was pretty bad in Portland and we were worn out from the drive, we decided to head straight to Multnomah Falls, which is located just outside the city.

^^ We didn't even plan our matching outfits. Or maybe we did. That would be just like us to plan this actually.

^^ We met this really nice family from Louisiana and asked them to dance with us for the video we were making for our trip. The parents immediately volunteered their little girl, Cheyenne to shimmy with us.

From Multnomah Falls we headed straight to Brush Prairie where the McGuires live. They are a family friend of ours and volunteered to house us for the night.

On the way there we saw the most brilliant sunset I have ever seen:

^^ pictures don't even do it justice.

The next morning, we headed straight to the most important place in Portland...

VOODOO DONUTS.

For those of you who don't know... I. LOVE. DONUTS.

Therefore stepping into Voodoo was literally like having all my wildest dreams come true. But wait, it gets better.

There were too many good donuts to choose from (I mean, SERIOUSLY?) so we picked two that looked good and told the guy working to fill our box with four more donuts that he liked the best so that it would total a half dozen. Yes, there were only two of us, and yes, the donuts were huge, and YES, we asked for six of them. But as the saying goes, YO freaking LO.

So the guy started picking out a bunch of donuts that he liked and filling up the box. He was taking an awfully long time and we were thinking "Oh shoot, he probably thought we said a dozen donuts and now we're going to have to consume (and pay for) twelve donuts..." because we both knew if he had actually put together a box of twelve donuts we probably would just take them and EAT THEM ALL.

So finally the guy turned around with the box and this is how that conversation went:

Him: "That will be $3.70."

Me: "I'm sorry...what?"

Him: "Three dollars and seventy cents."

Me: "For 6 donuts? That's it??"

Him: "Well, I only charged you for the two that you guys picked out. I mean, what if you don't like the ones I picked? You shouldn't have to pay for those."

Me (and Lauren) - variations of the following: "You are so nice! You're the best! Oh my gosh this is awesome! You're so great! I think we're in heaven!"

So after leaving him a fat tip, we walked out to enjoy our donuts, opened the box, and saw THIS:

^^ not six but TEN donuts!

That means he gave us EIGHT free donuts. Best. Day. Ever.

After consuming our entire day's worth of calories by literally taking at least one bite out of each of the ten donuts, we headed to the Waterfront Park to do some people watching and enjoy a nice stroll along the river.

We then headed to the International Rose Test Garden, because apparently Portland is the "city of roses." Who knew? I actually didn't...

The garden was absolutely beautiful, but it was hella hot (yeah, I picked up the word hella in NorCal bro), so we sat in the shade for like an hour then decided to do some more eating because that is what we do best.

We hit up the food trucks because there are a million of them in Portland. We got really good Mediterranean and Thai food from two different trucks. T-t-t-tasty tasty!

Then we headed up to Washington!

^^ By far the scariest state line to stop at.

I think we might have parked illegally and there were so many people honking at us. Oopsies.

We drove straight from Portland to Redmond, Washington, where we were staying with our friend Seth's family (we definitely used our connections to keep this trip as tightly budgeted as we possibly could--we have nice friends!)

The next morning we headed to our
Final destination: SEATTLE!

Our first stop in the city: Pike's Market (obvi)

We even got the guys who throw the fish around to dance with us for our video. Unfortunately I really suck at the running man and was way out of sync from Lo and the fish guy in the dancing video. Oops.

^^ straight up tourist-ing at the gum wall

It was actually soooo gross but a must-see.

Then my favorite thing from the trip happened. We saw Honey Boo Boo!

We literally stalked her down for like two minutes and followed her back to the gum wall, where we discovered that she wasn't actually Honey Boo Boo.

I told Lauren to pretend like I was taking a picture of her. Notice the girl in the green pants and pink shirt. I mean, the resemblance is uncanny.

Next we headed to Bill Speidel's Underground Tour where we saw underground passageways that used to be Seattle's main roads and sidewalks. I learned a ton on the tour - I had no idea that Seattle burnt to the ground over a century ago and was built pretty much on top of the original city.

The tour was cool but we completely forgot to take pics/vids so sorry!

We meandered along the streets for a while and found this display with my new favorite saying:

^^ Just being my selfie and taking selfies.

Then we took the water taxi to West Seattle to meet up with my friend Alyssa. West Seattle was GLORIOUS.

We rented bikes and headed to Alki Beach for some ice cream.

^^ SUCH a gorgeous view of the city scape from here!

We finished the day with a ride on the Seattle Great Wheel. It was literally the PERFECT time of day to go. There were a million sailboats out and it was right before sunset! We took pictures but they can't even do it the slightest bit of justice.

^^ look at all those sailboats! So pretty!

^^We were too cheap to buy the actual picture, so I 

snapped this pic of the computer screen

We finished the day with fish and chips at Ivar's, which was one of the tastiest things I had ever eaten.

The next day we did a whole bunch of stuff that we didn't take pictures of. This included:

1. Canoeing at University of Washington. So fun to see all the houses on the water!

2. Shopping on Ballard Ave

3. Lunch at The London Plane. Such a cute place and delicious food!

4. The troll under the bridge. Thanks to 10 Things I Hate About You for giving us this idea (and we actually did manage to snag a picture of this one!)

5. Attempted to get tickets to the Modest Mouse concert in every possible way, including all of the following:

- Craig's List - people were selling them for like $250+ each. Yikes!

- Begging the band via fbook and telling them that we had gotten food poisoning and been in a car accident, hit a deer, gotten some speeding tickets, etc. and that we needed tickets to make our trip worth it.

- Going to the actual venue of the concert and trying to convince the guy working (who looked like he moonlights as Bozo the clown) that he should sell us tickets because we knew there had to be some still available. Lauren tried showing some shoulder skin and I put my best leg (I mean foot) forward, but he wasn't having it.

- Asking the people already lining up outside the venue if they had any extra tickets. Fat chance.

6. After realizing Modest Mouse was a no go, we decided we would look for other concerts that were going on during our last night in Seattle. And guess who we found...

These guys

Since I literally only know them as those guys with the treadmill video, I thought it was really dumb when Lauren suggested it, but we didn't have anything else to do so we decided to go.

We got to the venue and there was a big SOLD OUT sign on the door. Awesome.

But then!! These two people outside the door heard us talking and asked us if we needed tickets. We said yes and they said they had two extra, so we bought them for slightly higher than the original price, but at this point we were just happy to get in.

And OH MY GOSH you guys. OK GO put on a heck of a show. It was seriously such a good time!

They are great performers. They kept having trouble with their guitar distortion or something, so they kept taking breaks so the sound guys could work out whatever they needed to do. 

At one point, they told us they were going to perform something special for us while we waited. 

This is what it ended up being. That video is from after a different show, but you get the idea. They said they usually perform Les Miserables when they break a guitar string and need a time filler. So funny!

Somebody from the crowd asked the guy in the hat if he was single and then we may or may not have asked said guy with the hat what he was doing later and he told us "I will be being single by myself."

We just told ourselves it was probably because everyone at this show was either middle-aged or in junior high, and since we definitely don't look middle-aged (right? tell me I'm right!) he probably grouped us in with the junior high kids. Whatevs.

After the concert, we literally decided to head back to Utah. We figured driving through the night and getting back to Utah mid afternoon would be much better than sleeping for five hours and then getting up early to drive all day and not get into Provo until like 10pm.

Sooooo we left. No major mishaps on the way home except I got a speeding ticket. Honestly, with our luck, I'm surprised that is all that happened.

What a trip! I highly recommend the west coast. I know I am moving back east in just a couple weeks, but the west coast will always have my heart.

Make sure that if you ever plan a 3,000 mile road trip that it is with someone you don't just tolerate, but someone's whose company you genuinely enjoy. Lauren was the best possible company I could have asked for. We decided that in a few years when I am done with school we will move to West Seattle. And we will see Modest Mouse IN Seattle one day. Ok that's all, bye.