I'm making these hills my bitch...

So San Francisco is an absolutely beautiful town but it is freaking cold here! How in the hell is it July and it feels like Georgia in November. Freaking weird weather...maybe that's why all the people are so weird. Of course the weather was lovely in Venice and those people were major freaks. Oh the strange people out here are the best tourist trap. In any case I got in last Friday and largely chilled for the first couple days because I wanted to hang with Collin and Stephanie while they were both available. We downed some serious celebratory tequila shots Friday and Saturday I did laundry(was running dangerously low on undies) and took care of some biznass and Sunday we had a cookout with the neighbors...healthy stuff for sure. Monday I decided to start in on the touristy stuff. Oh and the freaking boat to Alcatraz is booked up until next Tuesday!!! What the balls that sucked but maybe I can be a stowaway and ironically sneak onto the island...naaaa it ain't quite worth that but I may see if there's a cancellation or something. But ya wandered around Fisherman's Wharf and got some noodles in Chinatown and skipped through Ghirardelli Square and did acid in Golden Gate Park and yada yada yada it was a lovely day and I think I walked a marathon.

So my Tuesday was awesome!!! So this whole thing about the wineries is freaking great!! I was really intimidated by the idea at first but after a lot of procrastination I finally balled up and just went inside one and asked to try their stuff and I started slamming chardonnays. Fun fun day and oh by the way if you ever have a major urge to blow a shitload of money skip Vegas and go to Napa. Everything is delicious and you try the stuff and you immediately feel like you should at least get a bottle. I got a few bottles and even popped one to go with the steaks Collin and I had for dinner. All in all a healthy day but I spent too much damn money on wine and woke up with a headache this morning. Ain't the first time! In any case I really am enjoying San Francisco...this whole town is just incredibly attractive and clean and I've been eating well. I'm really hoping we can get out to Yosemite this weekend but Collin doesn't know if he can make it since he may have to work. Totally lame but we'll see what happens. Okie doke I'll post again soon hopefully when I have a few more interesting anecdotes and musings. Farewell and blah blah blah.:)

Ain't no flowers in my hair but I'm here!

So I have come out of the woods and I am in San Francisco! Once again I'm a little behind due to asssorted retardaries and being lost in the wilderness Kerouac style so I'll try to get back up to speed.

So I had to get the F outta LA...the bullshit and the people and the partying was seriously starting to wear on me. I wound up spending the 4th with these Dutch chicks and after hanging with these Swiss dudes the Canadians wanted to meet up and I started to feel like the fucking U.N.!!! So I skipped Hollywood except for checking out the Getty Museum which was absolutely AMAZING!! They have 4 Monets, a bunch of Degas, and the most beautiful Van Gogh painting I've ever seen. Chilled there for a while and then shot up to Santa Barbara largely just to get a motel and clean up my car and myself and plan out some stuff. After that it was on to Big Sur. Stopped at the Hearst castle for a bit which was the most opulently obnoxious frigging place I've ever payed $25 to look around. The view was pretty breathtaking but the house is largely a massive monument to some eccentric trustfund baby assbag that had to come up with stuff to do with his money so he built this rediculous mansion on top of a mountain so everyone would be impressed by him. Honestly there was some cool art but fuck that guy...I'm glad Orson Welles made Citizen Kane and talked shit.

So I camped out for a night and headed on up the coast. Highway 1 is freaking INCREDIBLE...basically as you're driving every 5 minutes you're blown away by something else. Cliffs and mountains and rocks and God knows what else are just everywhere and you're driving along the Pacific ocean and it's just humbling to see some of the stuff that is on this Earth. It's hard to describe and paint a picture of the country out here. You really have to see it...or look at pictures I guess so GFGI you lazy fucks!! After a gorgeous morning drive I got to Big Sur proper (Big Sur basically comprises a bunch of state parks along the coast from San Simeon all the way up to Monterrey) and camped in Andrew Molera State Park. I had a healthy hike along the coast and up a mountain which provided the best view I've had of the world in a while and then camped out. I was thinking of staying another night but the cold combined with the $25-$35 a night camping fee pushed me Northward to Monterrey and Santa Cruz where I went on a busted excursion to find Big Basin Redwood Park and said F it and carried on to visit my bestest buddies in the whole wide California Collin and Stephanie. Ahhh...a shower and a mattress not surrounded by Europeans is quite the luxury at this point. Loving life as always my friends. And I think I almost have it figured out what I might do when I return to the real world so maybe I'll come back from this with the whole reason I did it. Okie doke well I think Collin and I are going to hit the beach shortly (I know...I didn't know there were beaches here either. I'm sure as shit not getting in the water) and try to not look like a gay couple. I should be able to post a little more frequently since they have internet and I ain't paying for it! Farewell and Godspeed brahs and brahdettes!

Ya this is Hollywood...

Holy shit I have got some catching up to do!! I'm sorry guys I got into Venice beach and they charge money for the stupid internet here and I haven't had the motivation to get on here and post for a couple days. Now where was I?

Holy shit so San Diego wound up being soooooo AWESOME!! I mean the whole "I don't want to drink too much on this trip" thing is completely shattered but it was a wonderful time. The second night there there was a pub crawl and it was basically me and about 10 girls from all over the friggin place. Couldn't complain about that even when we emptied the karaoke bar and I dropped a ten dollar double bourbon and coke on the floor. Anyway I survived that night and wound up going to the beach the next day with the lovely Helena and My. Helena is from Germany and My was Swedish and they were both the cutest and sweetest girls ever. Had a blast at the beach and when I got back all those Irish fucks made fun of my sunglass coon eyes. Ya I forgot the sunscreen but it has since shifted into a tasteful and attractive bronzing...still got coon eyes though. That night we had trivia in the common area and I was on a team of English people and we lost by one frigging point! Clubs after that and the whole thing started again but many great friends and wonderful people. Oh and I was able to apologize to the girl about the dubstep comments and she totally forgave me but subjected me to an extremely long-winded and awful history lesson in dubstep and how her friends invented it and people don't understand the musical intricacies of blah blah blah holy shit I don't care! I was polite and nodded however and found myself in the good graces of the hostel staff once again. Good times in general.

So I left San Diego and actually brought a friend. Alex ze German asked if he could hitch a ride to Venice beach and I obliged. Super cool guy but it was funny because I didn't figure out what his name was until we were half way to LA. So we get in the first night and go on a fantastic pub crawl with these Norwegian chicks that culminated in yet another shitshow of a night. And then yesterday Alex and I wanted to grab a quick happy hour drink and wander into some cantina featuring something or another and shrimp tacos and I hear "Hey Bulldog!!" as a response to my red Georgia hat I was proudly wearing. It turns out these guys are from Atlanta Chris Clark and Kyle Tekiela and they know Goldie and Molly and everyone back home! So they take me to this random ass block party and I wind up drinking beer with this dude claiming he was the sound engineer for Ray Charles and he tells me I need to get in touch with him after I finish my trip and he'll help me get a book published. Obviously raining bullshit all over the place but it was still cool. Then I find out the house we're at is the guy from 10 Things I hate about You...not Inception dude but the guy that was the douchebag bad guy in the movie. Guy's all hippied out with a fucking satchel but it was still a trip to be drinking at a movie star's house. So by this point I haven't eaten and I'm starving so I grab a sandwich and go upstairs ready to chill for a bit and get pulled into yet another friggin' pubcrawl with these lovely Irish ladies and this French girl who knew about 3 words in English. She was a sweetheart though and I had to help her order beers and stuff at the club. Oh and I haven't even mentioned that Venice Beach is a TRIP!!! Crazy people everywhere...bunch of street performers and crazy folks selling shit and on acid and dragging about this place is delightfully weird. Oh ya and last night after getting back from the bar I almost saw a damn bum fight in front of the hostel. This place is so different but I'm still loving life although at this point my liver is starting to hate me. July 4th tomorrow and I have no plans but I have a feeling something will pop up...it seems to be happening a lot lately! Maybe Hollywood next for a night before I go back to the wild for a couple days before San Fran. Oh and I just found out I have to be back to Atlanta to move by the 8th so my trip might be cut a bit short. Oh well such is life...I'll be back on when I get somewhere that has free frigging Wifi!!!!! Ciao beeches!!!!

New feature at the San Diego Zoo!!!

Well the economy has really hit the Zoo business hard and here at the San Diego Zoo we've decided to drum up some more revenue by offering a very special event every Friday...it's called Assholes and Animals! Basically every Friday night we will extend our hours to 3 am, lower our beer prices signicantly, and visitors will be allowed to throw objects at the animals free of charge!! What a fun time!!!

OK they're not really doing that over there but I was pretty tripped out that they sold beer at the zoo and they have a program where you can go and camp out over night inside...I was extremely tempted to do it but I've done enough on this trip to be accused of being a pedophile...In any case the zoo was cool as shit and I am adoring the 70 degree temperature of San Diego. The desert was definitely starting to wear on me. On the way down here I had to drive through the Colorado Desert for about an hour and that was actually really intense because it was absolute nothingness and 116 degrees. There was also no one out there at all. And i mean real desert...like sand dunes and no vegetation and shit. Really crazy.

San Diego has been cool so far. I am the only American in this hostel...everyone is Irish and hammered constantly. We played poker last night and I think I pissed off the staff because this weasley fuck that apparently works here said I look like Zack Galifinakis to which I replied well you're the one rocking the 'stache without any sense of irony there Cheech and this was right after I went on one of my rants about the uselessness of dubstep. I don't know maybe he's a DJ or something but I think the staff hates me now. All the people staying here are super cool though. I was hanging with a couple Australians last night and then a whole freaking herd of drunk Micks come home and I wound up discussing economics with them until 1 in the morning. Strange night. However do not fret because there is a delectable pizza-by-the-slice place across the stree that I can smell from my unintentionally private room on the top floor and there is a very enticing pub crawl tonight where I will God-willing find some beautiful and hammered pair of boobs with an accent that will make an international incident out of my junk.

By the way I don't think I've mentioned it but the Grand Canyon was truly amazing and awe-inspiring. I thought it was going to be built up too much and I was going to be terribly unimpressed because it's such a touristy clusterfuck but man oh man that thing is absolutely hard to fathom. Damn near killed myself hiking into the thing too but it was well worth it. I like Flagstaff too and OMFG I had the best cheeseburger there at a place called Diablo's. They use English muffins as the buns which sounds weird but it's freaking awesome. I also had my first In-n-out experience as well which was also breathtaking...damn I'm eating a lot of cheeseburgers.

Well I'm here for at least one more day if the Irish staff doesn't kill me tonight and then I think I want to go to Venice beach and flex my glutes on the sidewalk...damn that reminds me I need to shave my ass tonight. Farewell chitlins!!!! Cali's got me...help!!!!!!

Things I've Learned...

So I can't come up with my usual witty banter about random encounters and musings relished on this journey so I decided to construct a list of some of the things I've learned since leaving the wonderful state of Georgia. I'll likely update this list regurly as I am constantly learning interesting things necessary for survival and I have no one around to make the joke to. It's like being in a perpetual bad movie and I keep thinking of funny stuff to comment on and then I just talk to myself and laugh quietly and the people in the next car think I'm crazy.

1.Beau Rivage Blackjack dealers are really nice and helpful while they're taking your money.
2. Houston actually has a hostel and it sucks balls. Sorry I'm not paying money to sleep on a couch no matter how drunk I am.
3. Someone should construct an "American Hipster Town Tour" and you would get to see a shitload of amazing and beautiful places full of fedoras and Converses.
4. Austin...I never thought I'd fall in love with a whore that kicked my ass like that.
5. There's like 100 different kinds of Mexican food...and Taco Bell is delicious everywhere.
6. Carlsbad is basically a really big and dusty trailer park.
7. New Mexico is an even bigger and dustier trailer park.
8. Nothing is ever open in Marfa, Texas.
9. Going on bike rides is fun after you're 8...and they are difficult to ride drunk at 3 in the morning but you won't go to jail (watch now I'm gonna get charged with a BUI and go to jail.)
10. Vienna sausage is the shit when you're camping...don't think about it just get it down and take a vitamin.
11. Gay pride parades are funny as hell but I probably wouldn't go to one on purpose.
12. It is hot as FUCK out here!!
13. There's a talk show on Sirus Radio called "Whore Talk." That's just hilarious to me..."Hey Dick did you hear the Regular Guys this morning?" " Naw man I only listen to Whore Talk on the way into work."
14. Power naps work.

That's all I can think of at this point but I might make this an ongoing feature in the Dickedge chronicles. Tomorrow I go to the graetest and most celebrated hole in the ground on Earth...the Grand Canyon!!! Everyone says I'm gonna shit my pants when I see it which I hope isn't true because that would make the hike down decidedly uncomfortable I'm sure. Buenos Noches Mi Capitans!!!

"Hey Dick! You ever been to Mexico?" "Sure haven't but I've seen it!"

OK so I made that little side trip to Big Bend National Park and holy friggin' cannolli is was hot!!! I decided to emerge myself in a short little personal test of manhood and hike 6 miles in 120 degrees through the ACTUAL Mexican desert landscape. Just to give you an idea of how stupid I am I was the only car parked at the trailhead when I got there, hiked into the desert, and on my way back to the car 3 hours later I was able to stay on the trail by way of my own footprints because everyone had stayed in the mountains. Bunch of pussies in my opinion...I made that dessert my personal bitch making me sandwiches and shit. Wait I meant desert...shit which way do I spell it? I mean obviously I've made a lot of deserts my bitch...shitdamn everyone knows that. But this particular day I made a dessert my bitch...course I made a desert my bitch my too. After a hike like that HOO WEEE I was ready for some ice cream. But back to the lecture at hand...Big Bend is an amazing, awe-inspiring place and I'm so glad I went there. And yes I was keeping my eye out for border jumpers. Hell I was hiking along the Rio Grande...I was practically working for the Border Control. Apparently the illegal immigrants were smarter than I was as well as I saw no one wading into freedom. Oh by the way I met the COOLEST people from Boston that are also driving across the country...we hung out in Marfa and then they met me in Big Bend. We camped out and looked at super novas and drank stolen wine together...it was a healthy experience. In any case go to Big Bend immediately and hike to the top of the Chisos Mountains and sit there and think about the universe...truly unbelievable place and I'm so glad I followed that impulse. Thank you weird creepy guy at Padre's that kept bitching about onion ring manufacturing!

Oh quick thought today...has anyone ever heard of an acoustic George Michael cover band? Tell me we couldn't book that shit everywhere! I think that might be my job when I return.

So where to next? Well I have checked into a lovely crack motel in Carlsbad, New Mexico because I got here too late to go in the caverns. Carlsbad is a lot like South Atlanta if you added even MORE Mexicans and took away all the good restaurants. Meh I'm not bothered though because I mostly wanted to have a quick shower seeing as how I haven't had one in 4 days and have been sleeping on top of the most precariously placed rock in the Chisos Mountains...driven directly into my lower back. Thus I have given up on the charm of Carlsbad and I think I will go to the caverns in the morning and then spend a night in Roswell...aliens and conspiracy theories anyone??? Hmmm...I think that might have to happen. Plus I'm hoping Kathryn Heigl still lives there...I'd still totally hit that. I'm planning out what happens after that tonight and I may get back out in the wilderness soon so if I don't post for a little bit I'm very likely being raped by alien invaders. Good night America!!!

If this ain't Hollywood...I'm lost.

Well I logged quite a few miles yesterday and I must say WOW what a drive! I am absolutely humbled by the beauty and hugeness of the land out here. It is definitely interesting when you drive on one road for an hour and neither see another car nor have cell phone service until you hit the interstate. So after a 7 hour drive dodging tumbleweeds I have landed in the town of Marfa, Texas. It's about an hour and a half off of I-10 in the middle of the West Texas desert. It was recommended to me by a few folks in Austin and I am loving this place!!! It is basically a town of about 2000 people that was discovered 50 or so years ago by an artist out of New York who moved here and started painting and it has become a bit of a hipster art community only the hipsters are super friendly which is a new concept to me. I asked the lady at El Cosmico where I'm staying what security was like and if my bike and everything would be alright. She laughs and says she doesn't even have a key for her apartment. Sounds good to me! Well apparently everything is closed on Sunday except for one of 2 bars in town named Padre's who actually had a guy playing guitar last night so I decided to ride my bike down and catch the show. Well it took me about 5 minutes of sitting at the bar that I started talking to a girl that was born and raised here and writes the local magazine for the area as well as the guy who played guitar...Phil Gibbs from Austin. And I definitely put in a request for Pancho and Lefty and he killed it! Oh and I also met the guy who got hit with the apple in the new True Grit movie who was funny as HELL and the guy that did the artwork for all the Eagles albums and claims he used to date Joni Mitchell. This place is definitely a trip. I'm thinking of staying an extra day or two just because Monday is apparently a weird day and alot of places aren't open. Oh and surrounding us are just beautiful rolling hills with nothing around. This is the most random weird and awesome place I've ever been and I've barely seen any of the town! I'm a little worried about the fires in New Mexico which could hinder my trip to Carlsbad...I'm going to have to keep an eye on the news and see what's happening over there.