I tried and tried and tried to upload the contents of Ed's camera to my Mac, but it wasn't compatible and the camera wouldn't even show up in my Finder window. The best/most crazy photos are all on his camera, as mine died as we were walking out of the door of the hotel and into the night that I brought the camera to take photographs of. Luckily, Ed's had plenty of juice and we took tons of snapshots and video, but I had his camera jacked at my house all week where it was useless... so, until we get those photos/videos up, here's everything worthwhile that was on my camera.
Before I even left I decided to do a little vlog to kick off my "SF Road Trip coverage." Calling it "coverage" is an inside joke I started with myself to justify going on a road trip last minute that I technically don't deserve or am able to afford. I figured if I turned as much of the trip into blog/Twitter fodder, I would feel less bad about eating nothing but English muffins for the last week of September and first week of October.
I woke up really early because I was afraid of oversleeping and not having enough time to pack cute clothes. By the time Ed and his sister showed up, I was exhausted and completely spaced out, which I think is clear from my inability to form a thought.
I wanted to grab a shot of my son and I on our way out the door. Wags has never really been on a long car ride. He used to ride on my lap everyday for about eleven miles on the 10 Freeway and he's been drugged out on a couple planes, but never has he had to sit relatively still for upwards of five hours. I was very, very nervous about this because Wags isn't exactly easy-going.
I wore all the jewelry I thought I might need on the ride up so that it wouldn't get broken in my backpack. I packed insanely light. I brought what I'm wearing here (sweatshirt, t-shirt and leggings), the dress I wore out that night, a pair of jeans and wife-beater. I have found time and time again that this is the only way to travel, especially if you don't give a fuck if people think you smell.
My CD burner has been on the fritz for a hot minute and the Jeep doesn't have an iPod jack, so I threw together a bag o' media. Some really cheesy CDs I've been listening to forever and a few comedy albums that I have since discovered all kind of suck. Not, they don't really "suck" per se, but I used to listen to Hedberg and Black and be like "This is some next level shit". And ya know, in a comedy club or when you're twenty years old, it is. When you're 24, hungover, driving at an extremely illegal speed down the 5 for hundreds of miles and dealing with two dogs and a friend who probably thinks you're a jerk for playing such annoying CDs? Not so much. Oh yeah, and that's definitely a burned copy of Enema of the State by Blink 182. I woke up to the news that morning that my high school crush Travis Barker had been in a plane crash and I felt like I needed to pay respect to the sounds of my youth.
Once we hit the road, we chatted for a couple hours as our asses melded to the seats in the Jeep. I snacked on some mangos and pineapple I bought from a man on the street before we left. Wagandstuff stuck his little melon out the window and made out with me. Marissa requested second shift, so I went to the back seat and took a nap while my son spooned my face.
Ed was a delight to travel with and since we both get very excited about the same things, we spent the rest of the time I was awake eating In and Out and giggling about the impressions we wanted to leave on people that night. We decided that the only option was to just roll up to San Fran, change some mother fuckers forever and then roll back to LA knowing that we could never really be held accountable for anything we did that weekend. Some possible scenarios we discussed:
- Roll up to a house party, drink all the booze, hunt through their bathroom cupboards for anything of value and then leave.
- Roll up to a house party, steal someone's baby pictures, drink all their booze, vomit and piss on the stolen baby photos, put out my cigarette on the pile and destroy their childhood memories before leaving without so much as a "good-bye"
- Find a group of unsuspecting gentlemen in a bar, force them to buy us a bottle of wine, and then find an excuse to leave the bar with the wine without speaking to the men again or sharing any of the wine they just bought us.
Granted, we probably wouldn't be able to pull off anything other than the first option unless it was a natural progression, and even then we're both a little too decent to actually do anything like that... but we sure laughed.
When we got to the hotel to check in, I was thrilled to stretch my legs and see that we were staying in a gorgeous hotel (The Hilton in Union Square). There are tons of boutique hotels in San Fran that we saw, even just in our area, but the Hilton was fairly inexpensive for what we got and they allowed dogs with a small fee. Like a dork, I snapped this pic to commemorate the time we checked into a Hilton hotel and I was holding my dog's chewed up toy.
Sometimes when you go into a hotel that you know isn't the Ritz but is still a nice hotel, they go for a richer decor than they actually need to, almost mocking themselves. I didn't find that to be the case at our hotel at all. The lobby (which I can only imagine is pretty enchanting during the holiday season) was warm and elegant. The staff was incredible. There were Jelly Belly jelly beans at the check-in counter! The concierge pulled out photos from his wallet of his own chihuahua named Mikey. It was an easy arrival and I truly felt like I was on vacation.
After we settled into our rooms, we went on a liquor run and a walk around the block to find food. Ed and I have been doing a lot of sushi dates recently and when we saw this sushi place we had to stop and get a couple rolls and some miso. I grabbed this picture while we were waiting for our credit cards to finish authorizing. Whatever, we're tourists.
The garage at the Hilton is covered in murals of people doing San Franny things. Ed noticed this broad trying to take his photo and had to say "Excuse me, we're on vacation. This is why we leave LA, to avoid the cameras." Ugh! Paparazzi!
I was nervous about touching this bike cop on his flat nipples but he seemed to enjoy it. Sometimes risk-taking can pay off. If you can take anything from this photo, take that.
Beside our sushi, these are the snacks we picked up at the store. OK, no. To be fair, these are MY snacks. Ed also bought some other things... but this is what I purchased in terms of the "essentials"-- Coke, Vodka, energy drink, cranberry juice (for the vodka!), cheese chocolate and that gross party mix I can never stop eating when I see it. This is some insight to my diet and ability to prioritize. And don't worry-- I ate the cheese immediately after I snapped this photo. I don't blame the gouda for what became another legendary Molly McAleer vom-fest.
Then Chace came! Chace and Ed are BFFs from BC. They were both a year older than me and although Ed and I knew each other in college, we never really became the husband and wife team we are until I moved here (a story for a whole 'nother time.) Chace is one of Ed's friends that I've come to call my own and she's honestly one of the nicest, most fair and down-to-earth people our age I know. She's studying to be a judge and any more association with me will probably reflect poorly on her, so I'll just say she's awesome and it was great to see her and move on.
Because I'm delusional, I thought it would be totally cool to stand on the side of the bathtub when I wanted Ed to take a full shot of my dress. I got this dress at
Second Time Around, the high-end consignment store that my mom runs back in Boston (she runs the Needham, MA location.) It's not her business, but in my personal opinion it might as well be. Her store has grown over 300% since she took over and is expanding because she's done such a fantastic job. Basically, this is a very expensive (well, way out of my price-range, anyway!) and beautifully made Marc Jacobs dress that I got for a final price of seventy-five smackers. It looks and feels like it's never been worn and may not have been, but I feel like I'm wearing art when I have it on. I threw on some fishnet footless leggings that I rolled up (for warmth) and a pair of blue and brown flats, also scored at Second Time Around. Because this dress can look a little
FLDS if you don't accessories properly, I wore pretty much every necklace that I love and my
cat earrings. I don't know if I look like a hot mess, but I was warm and I felt great and supposedly that's what matters.
Since Ed was wearing his True Religions with the crazy-sexy-cool ass pockets, he too had to strike a pose on the bathtub. This jacket makes him look like quite dapper as well. He's a good-lookin' guy, that Edward.
Chace said "Take a picture of us like we're in love and we're about to make out." Done and done.
Before we left, I insisted that we all stop to take a picture in the mirror with my son. At the time it was just a drunken idea, but it birthed one of the best photos of the trip, in my opinion. If there was a photo in my possession that best represented each of our personalities weekend, this would be it. Chace: Sweet and loving. Wags: Curious and lovable. Me: Stunned and clueless. Ed: Fierce.
After this, my camera died but we picked up with Ed's camera right before, so there is a slight overlap where there's photos on Ed's camera of me filming us in the elevator. I know that those are the money shots and clearly when things started getting good. Who doesn't love the meta classic "taking a photo of someone taking a photo", right!?!?
I did, however, manage to do a few things when I got back to the hotel: barf, put on my leggings and take off my bra and charge my camera batteries. I snapped a few on the ride back because I was way too sick all morning to take any in the city.
Ed took the first driving shift again and I took over about two hours in, after we had picked up Bam Bam and got to a more remote area.
The photos of the landscape don't even come close to capturing how amazingly beautiful the stretch of land you see on the 5 is, but let me tell you: If you live in LA and you've never done this drive, YOU MUST. It's hard when you live in the city to think of California having such extremes, but it was some of the most beautifully desolate scenery I've seen in a long time. "Desolate" is definitely the word. If you let your mind wander while looking into the endless fields you begin to wonder how children who grow up in such a deserted and unsettled area could even have a fighting chance, it really is void of any visible signs of human life... but it's SO beautiful.
Ed and I were joking about how if the car broke down and our phones died
that we would wind up living in this area for the rest of our lives,
but a part of me kept saying "That might be kinda nice...". I'd never
do that at this juncture, but I can easily see myself retreating
to some sleepy agricultural town in my old age, craving the simplicity
that this kind of living offers you. It reminded me of going to Girl Scout camp or to my grandparent's beach house where, going in, you thought you'd die without your creature comforts like television and shopping malls but by the end of the two-week stay, you barely noticed that you weren't falling asleep to the sound of a Law and Order rerun. The sounds of the land had become much more soothing. I can imagine that you could survive without technology in this part of the world the same way. There's just took much to look at, too many vegetables to taste, too many things to get your hands into that feel a lot more rewarding.
While I was doing all this hyperbolic thinking, I was also concentrating on keeping my shit together before I took over for the last four and a half hours of the drive. I stopped vomiting by the time we picked up Bam Bam and was able to shut my eyes for a solid twenty while Ed navigated us out of the city. After my nap, I was ready for a McDonald's cheeseburger and a chance to listen to all those crappy comedy CDs I brought with me.
Bam Bam and Wagandstuff didn't get along at all, and since Wags in an instigator and the smaller of the two, he had to ride home in his airplane bag while Bam Bam wandered around the folded-down backseat like a brontosaurus. I have only seen one or two pictures that truly capture how gorgeous this dog is, and unfortunately this isn't one of them. I think dog lovers can tell though that this puppy is so unbelievably good-looking in real life that it's impossible to discipline him without feeling like a jerk. When Bam Bam was crawling on top of me trying to get to Wagandstuff, I would do my best to pull him off of me, which was frustrating in the moment because he weighs almost as much as I do. Every single time I would have to say "Malo, Bam Bam!" (he speaks Spanish), I'd turn around and look at his face and just say something along the lines of "Fuck. That dog is really fucking cute." Between his shiny gray-blue coat and the sad eyes and the perfect way his nose and mouth meet up at the bottom of his face, he's really one of the most irresistible creatures I've ever met in my life.
I was trying to explain to the readers we met up with on Saturday night why exactly Bam Bam is so unique, and I finally realized that the universal magic of Bam Bam (beside his good-looks), is that he's truly like the brontosauruses in that scene in Jurassic Park. You know, that scene where they kids and Jeff Goldblum are sleeping in that tree and they wake up to see the gentle face of the largest dino looking back at them? His size makes you think he'll eat you, and technically he probably could, but his demeanor is so sweet that after a moment you can't help but trust that if you stick your face in his, you'll be OK and you'll both feel better for it.
This was the only photo I got of the mountain views which was taken about an hour and a half outside of San Fran on the 5. The really amazing stuff came shortly after we passed this and Ed and I were referring to the landscape as "The Land of the Lost". It was the kind of nature you see in text books under the "nature" section. Totally classic and totally familiar, but still mind-blowing to see in real life.
Hopefully I will be able to upload the remainder of the photos from Ed's camera and hopefully I didn't bore you by waxing poetic about my drive up north... but at least I got my stupid "coverage" quota filled, right?
