Living and working in the Bay Area is a very special thing right now, in that it is the epicenter of american technological innovation and advancement and Millennial startup culture. I love my job and what I do. The information architect part of organizing and categorizing all the info and data of a system to be created – currently, a game – in concise, meaningful ways and then mapping out their relationships is like placing all the individual stars in the sky to create an entire universe. The user experience part is recognizing the touch points between the system and the user and exposing just those touch points in an interface in an aesthetically pleasing way and based on methods culled from consistencies in human behavior and cognitive psychology. Make it easy, simple, usable. Don’t make people think…
That being said, I really needed a fucking break from the city and the grind. On top of my daily grind of User/Player experience designer at an awesome gaming company, I have also taken on a freelance web client and devote about 5-10 hours a week to that, started DJing two nights a week at a small club in the TL and teaching and practicing yoga with my new friend Dastan the Persian Yogi.
So what perfect timing it comes about that one of my oldest friends from my teenage years comes out for a visit and a road trip to Yosemite and Mono Lake. Cody had been a friend since we were both 12 or 13. From then until our early 20s we’ve somewhat regularly hung out or talked on the phone and have since managed to keep in touch less regularly but still on the regular in the grand scheme of our 33 years around the sun. I had been having a rough year this year and have grown to miss my roaming hobo on wheels lifestyle I had grown accustomed to when I decided to move west almost exactly 2 years ago. Cody had been on tour with Foreigner for quite a while and also Kid Rock as of late and expressed the need to cleanse the Kid Rock tour from his soul. For once, I also virtually did none of the planning for this trip other than embark on the rigamarolish journey of retrieving my car from the South Bay which entails bus to Caltrain, an hour ride then a Lyft from the station to my friend Leila’s apartment complex.
So, that’s where it starts – Monday morning Labor Day scooping Code from SFO where a drunken tech bro and fellow traveler managed to sit on him twice and continuously asked if he was on the west coast or not… I roll up all hey what’s up hello cuz I’m a trap queen and we meander up 280 to pack and feed Toshiba and head north east. Quick stop for lunch in Oakland where we examine the map I brought and notice a town near our destination labeled Bodie (Ghost Town) and we’re like fuck yeah we’re going there too! Also in Oakland there’s this amazing beauty supply shop where Cody got his spirit feather and where I found myself surrounded by wigs. Tons and tons of wigs. 
This is Cody posing on some pipey hydrant art:
Maybe an hour into the drive I’m craving strawberry Popsicles and need an SD card so we stop at Walgreens in Manteca and make the following purchases:
- Sd card
- Real fruit Popsicles strawberry, 6 pack
- Light up bottom skull face water cup with kid and straw
- A real life scale skull with moveable jaw
- Two light up eyeball rings
- Cat ears headband
- The last cooler they had!
- Ice
Really smart and practical purchases. So cat ears and sunglasses and Popsicles and now I’m happy. 
We press on and after a couple of hours and a couple more stops to take pictures of the rolling hills and mountains and country side and some dead horse memorials, I start to feel the stress of the city and daily life melt off my shoulders and spine a bit. We ask some locals where to find food and provisions that’s still open and end up in Kennedy Meadows and get some weird dinner. It’s getting late so we head to Bridgeport but stop one more time to get some night shots of the stars and being elevated 9000 ft, where it was once 98 degrees during the day, it was close to about 40 degrees at night, so it didn’t last long because I was freezing and my tripod was wonky as fuck. The stars were incredibly bright and you could see the Milky Way.
So a dark and twisted stretch of road more we find the RV park and kinda wander around blindly trying to find the right one and where to park and such. It’s so dark. We are both road weary and go to sleep. I dreamt of wandering a strange and familiar house where I was trying to find a bathroom and woke up ffffreezing cold and having to pee but refused to get out from under the covers because it was ridiculously cold. I lie there thinking duh there has to be heat in this thing and finally force myself out of bed and find the heat and go back to sleep. But not until after Cody is sure to tell me that he was so cold he considered slicing me open and making me into a tauntaun sleeping bag. So then I dream of places like Hoth and Degobah.
Later that morning I can actually see our surroundings and we are by this lake in the middle of the mountains and the last of the Popsicles have melted. We pack up and head to Bodie and it’s getting really hot out. The ghost town was a lot larger than I expected and was slowly filling up with tourists, or “cocksuckers” as Cody referred to them. 
It’s full blown hot out and we are getting dehydrated and hungry so we peace and head to Mono Lake and blast ELO and roll all the windows and sunroof open. The scenery is reminiscent to the Mojave desert and I feel at home. The part of my life earlier this year where I was writing up a business plan, talking to VCs and planning to purchase land in Joshua Tree that was quickly squashed when multiple things went awry started to feel like a possibility again. Sometimes I get these glimpses into my future and they guide me and let me know that either I’m in the right place at the right time or that I’m still on track to get to where I want to go. It’s just scale and perspective.
We found Mono Lake! It’s a little smelly and we aren’t allowed off the boardwalk? But fuck it, we respectfully trespass with caution. There are sun bleached salt rich marshy sands and tufa rock formations, yellow flowers, bright green tall grasses and cattails (which I thought were called cat o’nine tails, which apparently are those sexy leather whip jawns 😜).
I was a little disappointed in Mono Lake. I wanted to see the weirdo tufas that stick out of the water and all the floating mini salt glaciers I’ve seen so often in photos. We drive around to the other side of the lake and that’s where the action is! Everything is so white and the sun was so hot and reflecting back into my eyes from the ground. We are starting to feel hot and thirsty and weak from not eating yet. Got some really cool photos though.
Before heading out I got to play on the swings and talk to some burner chicks on their way back from Black Rock City heading towards Los Angeles. They had sandwiches that I could not stop drooling over from behind my sunglasses. We shared a joint with them and rolled out in search of gas and food and found both shortly after at some roadside BBQ joint that felt like a beach stop in the middle of the high desert.
Earlier we made a goal to find some kind of body of water to play in and after lunch we randomly stopped at this lake we were driving past that looked really clear and refreshing. It was probably not the official entrance to the lake being a roadside pullout and all but we climbed down rocks on the side and went in. It was really fucking cold! But very refreshing, all the same. We went in and I immediately clawed my way back over these sharp rocks and put my boots back on.
We headed toward Yosemite with our newly lowered core temperatures. Drove through Yosemite and made a few stops for photos but was a little rushed to get back to SF that night. Sunset was gorgeous though and I found a tree that was very yucca-like.
We blasted the Beatles out of Yosemite with intentions of returning when there was more time. Classic tactic, Yosemite: always leave them wanting more. 😉
prettytrippy.com 