A few years ago I met this bad ass art-nude model named Katlyn. She had an expressive face, an amazing super-artsy posing technique and an übergnarly briarpatch of a bush, but none of that was what was really amazing about her — she was only 20 years old, yet her modeling m.o. consisted of traveling from city to city, shooting with various photographers along the way to make money. She slept in her car or in hostels, thus keeping her road expenses to a minimum, and was able to make a good living while seeing a lot of the country at the same time. Fabulous!!

Come to find out, there’s a whole sisterhood of traveling models on Model Mayhem — many of whom travel pretty much full-time, booking trips to random cities and hitting up every local photographer in the area to find work as they go. It works out great for photographers, as they tend to get tired of the same old local gash, and this gives them the opportunity to work with someone new — especially guys who live in podunk towns without many serious models. If a model is hardcore enough to travel around booking shoots, odds are she’s pretty serious about work and will do a good job/not flake/not be a bitch. (There are always exceptions, of course.)

Another example is my good friend from the Goddess Collective, Jill V. She splits her time between Vancouver B.C. and Vegas/Phoenix, but travels all over the place to shoot, and has been doing it for years. She’s pretty much used to sleeping on couches and living out of a suitcase — a true gypsy, which I admire greatly, as I am kinda high-strung and aspire to being more gypsy-like myself. I’m one of those people who likes to have my stuff with me, ya know? I have a long way to go :/

As a model in Vegas, I’m actually pretty lucky — even though all the local photogs are sick to death of my dumb ass, there’s always a fresh stream of guys coming into town for tradeshows or vacation or whatever, so I never really run out of new clients to shoot for. You’d think competition for bookings would be pretty stiff in Vegas, given the abundant local “talent…” but the truth is, there aren’t that many serious nude models, let alone art nude models, in Vegas. Women here are spoiled by the easy money that can be made elsewhere, and can’t be bothered to go through the trouble of getting up at 5am for a desert sunrise shoot, ya know? Also, most of the chicks here are heavily tattooed and/or have fake hair/tits/lips/whatever, so I get a lot of bookings based on my more-or-less natural appearance.

So while it’s fairly easy to sit back and wait for photographers to come to me, I always thought it would be fun to try out the life of a traveling model…and what better time to do so than summer, when it’s 115 degrees in Vegas and too hot to shoot outdoors anyway? So, I decided to take the plunge, and plan a modeling trip of my own…to the Pacific Northwest.

I chose the Pacific NW mainly because of my photographer friend Irisphoto, with whom I’ve shot a couple of times in Vegas, and who was always trying to talk me into visiting Seattle, where he lives, so we could shoot in the forest. Now, like most models I get cold really easy, so I asked him when was the hottest time of year in Seattle…and he said late July-August. At the time I planned my trip, I thought I’d be working Sturgis in August…so I booked the trip for mid-late July, hoping temperatures would be warm enough that I didn’t freeze my balls off.

Also at the time, my grandma was intending to have a family reunion at Lake Tahoe the weekend of July 25, so I planned out my trip in a big loop, starting in Vegas and ending up in the Tahoe area on the 25th. I figured to leave Vegas around July 5th, then head to the San Francisco Bay Area for a couple weeks to spend time with my family there, before heading on up to Seattle, then back down to Tahoe and then to Vegas again at the end of the month.

To secure gigs, I logged into Model Mayhem and posted what they call “travel notices,” to alert photographers in the cities I’d be passing thru to my availability: “Hey guys, traveling Wonderhussy on the loose! Who wants to shoot?” I posted notices in all the major towns along my route: Bakersfield (hey, you never know), San Jose/San Francisco, Medford OR, Portland OR, Seattle WA, Bend OR, and Reno/Tahoe NV. Then, I sat back and waited.

Now, legit traveling models are more proactive — they blast out direct messages to all the photographers in every city they’re visiting, and see who answers. But this being my first such trip, I was pretty passive, and just posted travel notices, waiting to see who was interested. Plenty of photographers regularly check the travel notices in their city, trawling for fresh meat so to speak, so I did end up getting a decent amount of interest, almost exclusively in the Seattle area. I ended up booking 7 shoots, most of them full or half-day bookings, so if all went well and no one flaked, I stood to make a decent amount of money — which was sorely needed, as both my cell phone and my laptop are on their last legs 🙂

Now speaking of flaking, I hear from photographers all the time about how flaky models are, and how many of them either cancel last-minute, or don’t show up at all. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s a two-way street — I’ve been stood up by a photographer or two in my day as well, and when you’re driving 1,000 miles for a shoot, you’re assuming quite a bit of risk…and it’s not like you can ask for a deposit (I’ve tried that before, and it just turns people off). So I just hoped for the best, and booked as many shoots as possible to compensate for any possible flakes. Also, my sister came along with me…so if worst came to worst, I could write the whole mess off as a profitless-yet-fun roadtrip.

Fortunately for me, I had very few flakes on the trip — really just a guy in Bakersfield, who cancelled because  of a scheduling conflict (but really I think he didn’t want his wife finding out he was shooting a nude model). But I had to pass through Bakersfield anyway, so it was no biggie — I just stopped there for dinner with my friend Dr. Zhivago, instead.

Anyway, the breakdown ended up being: 1 shoot in the SF Bay Area, 0 in Medford, 0 in Portland, 4 in the Seattle area, 1 up near the San Juan Islands and 1 in Reno. (I did get an email from a guy in Bend, but he was only offering to pay $50 and it just wasn’t cost-effective.) As a bonus, my grandma’s family reunion in Tahoe ended up being cancelled, so I came back to the Bay Area after Reno, and booked 1 more shoot in ever-glamorous Petaluma, CA in the north bay. So really, it was a total of 8 shoots.

The total miles traveled was around 2,526….and that’s a lot of gas money!! My sis paid for a gas a couple of times, and we took turns paying for food…and I also tried to stay with friends or family when possible, to avoid the cost of motels. I even brought my camping gear, thinking to save cheese that way whenever possible. But it’s really hard to do your hair and makeup in a soggy, damp tent…so until I get a van, motels or friends are really the most feasible option as far as lodging goes. Anyway, I still came out ahead on the trip…although not by as much as I would have, if I’d had a van or RV :/

 

Anyhoo, I basically started out my modeling tour in the Bay Area. After the unfortunate events of my last blog, I headed down to the east bay to shoot for Natural States, this nudist website that videotapes you doing stuff naked, like painting and jogging and whatnot. We went up to this park in Walnut Creek and he filmed me hiking nude among the oaks…and guess what, that wasn’t the first time I’ve been naked in public in Walnut Creek! I was born there, at John Muir Memorial Hospital — delivered by a Dr. Kronik, no less!!!!! Lulz!!!!!

That was my only shoot in the Bay Area, and on the 16th I departed Santa Rosa, CA, bound for Medford, OR, where my mother’s super-awesome cousin had offered to let us stay at her place for the night. Google Maps said it was around 6.5 hours to Medford…but that was if you took boring-ass I-5, which as everyone knows is one of the most boring freeways anywhere. So my sis and I decided to take scenic 101 up the coast instead…and while it took way longer, it was fabulously beautiful!! They call the Nor Cal coast up around Humboldt the “Lost Coast,” because most of the population has deserted it due to a shitty economy…so all that’s left are beautiful misty redwood forests hiding sporadic marijuana grow ops, with the occasional hippie and a few Bigfoot tourist attractions here and there. FABULOUS!!

Alas, however, we didn’t want to get to my mom’s cousin’s house too late, so we pretty much had to haul ass the entire way up, gawking at the gorgeous scenery as it flew past at 70mph 🙁 Our one pit stop was to get gas at this funky little outpost in Humboldt, a convenience store that sold all kinds of tourist shtick and pot-smuggling accessories, LOL. We met this super cool hippie biker there named Cy Cascade, and he put one of my Wonderhussy stickers on his bike and invited us to visit his camp at Burning Man. But then we had to get back on the road, and floor it through Eureka, Arcata and Crescent City…all of which I would have loved to have stopped and explored! Once I get a van or camper, the first fuckin’ thing I’m doing is go back and take my time through that area. It’s gorgeous!!!

As it was, we rolled into Medford pretty late, so just barely had enough time to pick up some delicious foodie-type pizza and head over to my mom’s cousin’s house for a late-night dinner. This woman is so bad ass, and her backyard looked out onto the most beautiful pastureland, so we had a really good time staying over with her, and I thank her for her generous hospitality! She cracked open a bottle of really nice local wine for dinner, and gave me a little goddess face to add to my 2014 Summer Adventure Hat before we headed on our way up to Portland, our next stop.

Interestingly, I was unable to book any shoots in Portland (?!), so we only stopped there as a sort of layover. My recently footloose sis is considering moving there, so it was a good opportunity for her to check out the scene, so see if she could handle living among all those earnest white people. While in town, we stayed with my awesome tattoo artist ex-boyfriend, who had recently bought a huge house with plenty of room for not only me and my sis, but also his two roommates and these three mountain biking lesbians he’d met at Burning Man who were also in town. Talk about a fun group! My special favorite was his one roommate, this awesome 90% deaf gay man who collects jewelry to sell on eBay, and who gave me a beautiful silver bracelet as a token of his esteem. But everyone else was cool, too.

The lesbians were actually really interesting because two of them lived in a pickup truck, with which they towed a cargo trailer that, besides being used for mountain bike storage, had also been converted into a mobile kitchen — one of them was a legit chef, and cooked up a bomb-ass dinner for everyone one night. But aside from cooking, they lived in the truck, which was a monster 4X4 with a huge hi-top camper shell on the back — they had a system of storage drawers underneath their sleeping platform back there, and it was a pretty cozy setup. Hmmm!!

Since I already have a bad-ass little truck, I’m thinking that maybe I should just put a camper shell on the bitch and call it a day, instead of getting a van. I hate to jinx myself, but my little ’05 Ranger made this whole trip like a fucking champ, and at 136,000 miles it’s still going strong. I’m only the second owner, and have put 100,000 of those miles on it myself, maintaining it religiously all the while…and have never had a problem with it other than a dead battery, so I’m guessing it has a LOT of life left in it. If I can get a high-top camper shell and a storage rack on top, I could probably go pretty far, in decent comfort. Something to think about!

Anyway, after the amazing trailer-cooked dinner, we all stayed up late drinking and talking, but one of the lesbians had to go back to Saipan in the morning (the one who didn’t live in the truck, obviously) so my sis and I spent the next day just roaming around Portland…which is one of the only cities in the U.S. where female toplessness (and nudity) is legal, as long as it is without the intent to arouse. Well, I didn’t intend to arouse anyone, so we both went topless…although I was too big a puss to do it in town, and only walked around this park, sunbathing and picking blackberries and whatnot. But still, it was a pretty liberating experience!

My hardcore series of back-to-back photo shoots was scheduled to begin the next day, so I went to bed early that night, while everyone else went to some no-holes-barred gross-sounding vegan strip club (a strip club that also happens to serve vegan food). Now believe me, my FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) was in overdrive, as I would have enjoyed nothing more than to visit a vegan strip club in Portland…but I hadn’t been sleeping well, and really needed some beauty rest, so I forced myself to go to bed in the the little basement bedroom we were staying in. But my sis reported back the next morning that the club had been truly disgusting, with women licking each other’s assholes and whatnot — apparently, Vegas strip clubs ain’t nothing compared to Portland! So I was pretty bummed that I had to miss seeing that.

Moreover, I was especially bummed because I still hadn’t heard back from the photographer I was supposed to shoot with the next day. I had confirmed all my shoots about a week prior to the trip, but now this guy wasn’t responding to my emails asking what address I was going to. I emailed him the night before, and the morning of, just before leaving town — no answer!! If I missed out on that vegan strip club for nothing, BOY was I gonna be pissed!! But I headed up the I-5 toward Portland anyway, hoping he’d respond by the time I got to Kent, where he lived.

I stopped at a rest area along the way and did my hair and makeup, at a picnic table near these two miserable-looking Bible-thumpers who were unsuccessfully attempting to proselytize to travelers, none of whom showed the slightest interest in their pamphlets. Maybe they were just there to save wayward teen prostitutes — apparently there’s a big problem with human trafficking up there, as this sign posted on the bathroom wall indicates. Yikes!!

Anyway, my shoot was supposed to be at noon, and by 12:05 I still hadn’t heard from the guy, so I assumed he was flaking. I sent him one last email, including my phone number, and apparently that was the magic bullet because he finally texted me. Apparently there was some miscommunication, but whatever — we straightened it out, and had a fantastic shoot at his home studio…and I finally made some money! Up til that point I was pretty broke, so it was a huge relief to get some cash flowing again 🙂

After my shoot wrapped, my long-suffering sis picked me up and we continued on up to Bellevue, where I was to be interviewed for this awesome documentary being made by another full-time traveling nude model named Kristy Rebel, all about the experience of being a traveling nude model. Alas, Kristy herself was out of town modeling (LOL), so I just interviewed on camera with her videographer…but it was a cool experience, and it sounds like it’s going to be a very interesting documentary. It also happens to have the greatest name ever: Bring Something Sexy. LOL…story of my life!!! Here’s the link…check it out!

Anyway, I didn’t have much time to dick around because I had a photo shoot booked on Mt. Rainier the next morning at 5am!!!!!!! I was supposed to meet the photographer at this nearby campground, and my original intent was just to camp out there as well, so I’d at least save myself the drive time. But as mentioned previously, the thought of getting ready in a damp, dark tent sounded miserable, so I had gone ahead and booked a cheap(ish) motel room in nearby Enumclaw, WA…about 30 min away. So that meant I had to get up at 3am (!!!), and couldn’t really dilly-dally. I had a quick dinner at Chipotle, which is the greatest traveling model food ever — ubiquitous, cheap, healthy and awesome. I wish I’d eaten it more on my trip…but I didn’t want my poor sis to get more bored than she probably already was. Anyway, then I hauled ass out to Enumclaw.

Now, I was actually really excited to visit Enumclaw, as it’s a site of no little notoriety, being the location of a super-infamous horsefucking scandal about which I once watched a fascinating documentary! It seems there used to be a ranch out there where guys could go pay to be fucked up the ass by a stallion (!!!), until one time this Boeing exec got rammed too hard and started bleeding internally, and the other guys dumped him anonymously on the steps of the local hospital, where he died. A thorough search led animal cruelty investigators to discover the ranch, but when they went out there, they determined that there was no cruelty being inflicted on the animals, as they seemed to enjoy fucking the men! In fact, as the investigators pulled up to the ranch and spotted the main stallion grazing peacefully in a corral….next thing you know, a little pony came out of the barn, ran up to the stallion and started fellating him!!!!! I’m not making this up!!!!! If you don’t believe me, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumclaw_horse_sex_case and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_(film). FAR FUCKING OUT!!!!

Aaaaaanyhoo, I didn’t have time to look around for any horse-related shenanigans — I basically just checked in, got a drink at a local cocktail bar, and went to bed. But one thing I did make time for was smoking weed in public — it’s legal in Washington State!!! I hit my little glass travel pipe while walking down the sidewalk in broad daylight, and nobody batted an eyelash — the only people to approach me were two Mormon missionaries, who asked if there was anything they could do to help me. Being as I had a pipe full of weed in one hand and was on my way to a cocktail bar, I was able to respond “No” totally truthfully…although now that I think about it, I suppose I could have asked one of them to stand in for me the following morning at the damn 5am photo shoot. “If you really wanna help me, brother…….”

So, don’t ask me how, but I was somehow able to drag my ass up at 2:50am (I woke up before my alarm even went off) and get ready for this photo shoot. I usually go to bed later than that, LOL! My poor sis had to get up with me, as I had another shoot booked immediately after the first one, and she would have been stranded in Enumclaw without a car all day if she didn’t drop me off. So we both headed out in the predawn misty rainy darkness, me running late as usual, hauling ass along these winding mountain roads that felt like nothing so much as a David Lynch movie.

But I made it to my shoot only a few minutes late, and the photographer turned out to be super cool — a true artist-type who likes to shoot at dawn because the light is like a giant softbox in all that gloomy mist up there. We drove way the fuck up some crazy logging road, deep into the forest, and the temperature dropped down into the 40s. Whenever we got to a spot he liked, he would have me jump out, pose for several minutes, then get back in the car to warm up. This went on for five hours!!!! It was astonishingly beautiful up there, but I’ve never been so cold and damp and miserable in my entire life!!! To make matters worse, at the end of the shoot he casually mentioned something about having heard Sasquatch up there one time — you know, Bigfoot!!!!! As in, the giant hairy beast-monster known to carry off women and mate with them!!! He was dead serious, too…YIKES!!!

I didn’t have much time to worry about it, though, as I had to meet the photographer for my next shoot at the Chinook Pass by 10:30 — my ever-loving sis picked me up and drove me out there, and I spent the next 8 or 9 hours shooting with my friend Irisphoto. His plan had been to shoot on the mountain as well, but the whole area was so socked in with fog that we only shot for an hour or so, and did the rest of the shoot back at this house in a nearby suburb. WHEW!! It was much warmer there, and we had a pretty good time shooting in this awesome old railroad caboose he has on his property, as well as among the trees and vegetation on his extensive grounds. He even offered to let my sis and I stay overnight in his caboose, which has been totally remodeled and is really comfortable inside…but alas, I had already booked a room in town, and had arranged to meet another photographer there at 9am, so I had to decline.

So my sis and I checked into our next shitty motel, a Days Inn on a super-methy, prostitutey stretch of highway in Federal Way, and I basically just passed the fuck out and finally got some blessed sleep before getting up at the luxurious hour of 7am and doing it all over again. This time, the photographer wanted to shoot up on Mt. Rainier as well…but first he thought he’d make some use of my hotel room, since I had it anyway, and he could shoot some boudoir stuff. So my sis took off for the day to do some sightseeing, and I went down to the lobby and met up with the photographer.

Now, many (most) of the photographers I shoot with are real characters, but this guy really took the prize!! I ended up really liking him and enjoying his company, but he kinda started everything out in a super-weird manner: he came up to the room and started drilling me about my limitations — i.e. how much vagina I was willing to show in photos. Idk, I make it pretty fucking crystal-clear on my Model Mayhem bio, but he had all these weird clinical questions about my labia and whatnot, and it kinda took me aback! Plus he had me strip down and turn in a circle so he could see my body, which was unusual…and plus, did I mention he was a dead ringer for John Candy?!?!?! I didn’t know what to make of this fucker….but I eventually figured out that he was just nervous and kind of a hyperactive ADD-type, and as I said I really grew to enjoy his company, and had a really good time cruising around with him all day. But considering all the wacky characters I’ve shot with over the years, I am sorely tempted to do a one-woman monologue-style show about my modeling adventures, with me doing all the voices and impressions. Wouldn’t THAT be awesome?! I’m here to tell you, I’ve shot with some real DOOZIES!

After shooting in the room for awhile, we headed back up to Mt. Rainier…which, shockingly, was totally blue and sunny and gorgeous that day!! We were able to get quite a few nice locations in, including flowers and trees and rocks and cabins…and this one ice fucking cold waterfall that I actually got into. Man, I really suffer for art!

After that day, I was totally pooped and just met up with my sis at our next shitty motel, a Travelodge up in Everett. I was staying up north because my next day’s shoot was in Anacortes, out by the San Juan Islands — but Everett turned out to be a really cool little town in itself, with all kinds of fun, funky hipster bars and restaurants, so it was actually an interesting place to stay. We had dinner at this hipster-foodie Latin place called Sol Food, then pooped out early so we could get up in time to drive up north and do a little sightseeing before my shoot the next afternoon.

Now remember, my sister and I had just been down in Baja California, Mexico a few weeks before all this — now that we were headed up to Anacortes, we had basically traversed the entire length of the West Coast, from the Mexican border to the Canadian! Since we were so close anyway, we decided it would be stupid not to drive all the way up to the Canadian border — even though I didn’t have my passport on me, and even though even if I did, those fuckers wouldn’t let me into their precious country on account of my DUI 🙁

It’s true — you cannot enter Canada if you’ve had a criminal conviction, which I just found out a few weeks ago, and which really cheeses me off! Apparently if the conviction was over 5 years ago, you can pay the Canadian government some kind of fee (around $200, I think) and they can grant you special dispensation for entry — even Pres. George W. Bush had to do this as head of state, since he had a DUI back in the day! It seems those moosefucking commies up there really take shit seriously, and me and my ilk are personae non grata. Meanwhile, they have this whole bullshit park on the border dedicated to peace and brotherhood with the U.S., including these symbolic gates which may “never be closed.” HAH!!!

I didn’t waste too many tears on it though — I had to be at this Indian casino in Anacortes by 2pm, for my shoot with Fotosymfony. He had booked a pretty nice suite with some cool ultramodern decor, so for once I didn’t have to freeze my ass off, and was able to roll around nude and semi-nude in relative comfort, as my sis got sloshed at the bar downstairs. When I finished, my sis and I got back in the truck and hauled ass out of there — away from the the freezing misery of the Pacific Northwest “summer,” over the mountains into the eastern portion of the state, where things would hopefully be warmer.

I didn’t have another shoot for two days, down in Reno, so now it was kinda like a little vacation. We cruised through the gorgeous, endless Pacific Northwest twilight (one thing I’ll say for them, they have the longest, most amazing golden hour ever), stopping to pick blackberries and take photos and other various road-tripping-girlie things. We drove through the most beautiful country, down through all these little towns and over the amazingly gorgeous Snoqualmie Pass, and ended up in ever-glamorous Ellensburg, WA, where we stopped for the night mostly out of necessity. On the way, we tried to stop for dinner at some tourist trap in the boonies called The Brick, supposedly the oldest restaurant west of the Mississippi, where they used to  film the TV show Northern Exposure….but despite the fact that the website said it was open til 11, come to find out at 9:30 the kitchen was already closed. So we ended up at a shitty truckstop in Ellensburg, which was actually probably way cooler, anyway!

The next day I had no photo shoots, so I was able to get up and go for a run…after beating up the free breakfast at the Super 8 where we stayed. (On this trip, I became pretty adept at milking all I could out of these shitty motels — and loading up for breakfast was one way to get my money’s worth.) Anyway, my running experience in Ellensburg SUCKED ASS, because not only did I keep getting lost among all the dead-ends and horse properties, but somewhere around mile 4 it started pouring rain, and now I was lost and soaking wet and pissed the fuck off!!! I ended up running 7 miles of soggy hell, and boy was I ready to get the fuck out of Washington after that!!!

A quick stop at Starbucks for coffee and makeup adjusted my attitude immensely, and then it was off on the road again — adios Washington, may we meet under better terms next time!!! Alas, it continued to rain on and off the whole way south to Oregon, which really sucked because we had planned to camp out at some hot springs that night, and camping in the rain ain’t no fun. We really didn’t want to miss out on these hot springs, though, as they came highly recommended by many people…so we just booked the cheapest room we could find in the closest town, Klamath Falls, which was only about 80 miles away. Practically next door, haha. If we hauled ass, we could make it to the springs by dusk, soak for a couple hours, and then be at the hotel by 1am or so. I didn’t have to be in Reno til 5pm the next day, so we had a little leeway.

But hauling ass really sucks, as it made me miss out on some really cool roadside attractions — like this full-size replica of Stonehenge I apparently blew right past without even noticing! Apparently, all kinds of kooky Wiccans and shit go out there and chant and wave sage and shit, but I didn’t even notice it 🙁 D’OH!!!! I hate rushing!! Why can’t there be 30 hours in a day??

As it was, we were only able to stop in Bend, OR for a quick bite…and I had heard so many good things about Bend that I thought I might really like it there, and had wanted to explore it a little. But I think I found out all I needed over burritos at the FABULOUS Parilla Grill — the food was excellent, dare I say better than Chipotle and at the same price, but the atmosphere of the townspeople was decidedly bro-ey, and not really my scene. And this was in summer — I can only imagine what it’s like in winter, when the place is choked with sno-bros!! I said this before in my blog about Mammoth — I hate snow culture! Snowboarding, skiing, whatever — it all seems to be popular with the most assholiest of all annoying assholes. “Whoa, bro, way to shred!” I’d like to shred your face on a cheese grater, bro!!! And don’t even get me started on skiiers….elitist poseur fucks, one and all!

Thankfully, we were basically just blowing through Bend on our way down to the fantastically magical Umpqua Hot Springs, which are way out in the boonies sort of southwest of town. It was a pretty substantial detour to be taking on such a tight schedule, but BOY AM I GLAD I DID! I almost ran out of gas, and had to shell out $4.99/gallon at some foggy little podunk campground along the way, but guess what? It was totally worth it! Those springs are A M A Z I N G ! ! !

I know I say this about a lot of hot springs I visit, but Umpqua really is up there in my top 5. As you may know, I prefer a natural hot spring experience — undeveloped, in nature, no admission charge. Up until now, my favorites had been Deep Creek, Arizona/White Rock and Saline Valley…but Umpqua might have stolen the top spot! I am DEFINITELY coming back to camp there sometime…it was wonderful!!

To get there, you drive through a rainy, misty forest (and this was in July, so I can imagine it must pretty much always be rainy and shitty there) down all sorts of winding roads that get progressively worse, until you reach a turnoff onto a really bad pot-holed dirt road. One thing I’ll say for Umpqua, the turn is well-marked by helpful regulars…which is really cool, considering some of the “other” springs I’ve been to have sort of an elitist attitude among their regulars, like they don’t want people to know about them. Deep Creek regulars are guilty of this, and I have gotten some very nasty emails from Saline Valley regulars for having dared to write about those springs…god forbid.

But anyhoo, Umpqua is cool as fuck and all are welcome. You park in a little lot by these vault toilets, pay $5 (it’s the honor system…but don’t be an ass), and then hike up a short but steep trail, about 10 minutes or so (and totally doable in flip-flops) to this little clearing on the side of a cliff overlooking a rushing creek, with four or five little rock-lined pools radiating misty heat into the forest air. Giant old-growth fir trees surround you, and it is totally magical. The hottest pool is at the top, by the source, and it’s around 107 degrees — hot, but totally soakable. The other pools are cooler, and the main one, which is in a sort of open-sided wooden hut covered in hippie graffiti, is pretty tepid and actually kinda gross….but it’s where most people were soaking that night, so I hung out there for awhile to chat.

I was there on a midweek rainy night, and even then it was pretty crowded — these springs are legendary! Kids and grownups come from all around to soak in the fabulous atmosphere, and we met some really interesting characters there. First, we were hanging out talking to a toothless old letch who gave me a foot massage and invited me to visit his camp at Burning Man (hmmm….I sense a theme), and this other cool old naked dude who was with the adorable 11-year-old son of his drug dealer — this amazing little kid in board shorts who was totally comfortable chatting with me and my sis, who were both buck naked and drinking wine. That was kid was so freaking cool — he kinda reminded me of my little brother, who is now a successful software engineer, haha. See?? There’s hope for you, kid — even if your dad is a crazy hippie drug dealer who drags you to remote hot springs full of strange naked ladies on rainy nights!!!!!

We also spent some time chatting with an awesome Zen Buddhist high school history teacher, who filled us in on the secret racist history of the state of Oregon. OMG, I had no idea!! Oregon comes off as so liberal and friendly…but come to find out, it used to have the biggest Klan chapter outside of the south, and really mistreated blacks and Chinese laborers back in the day. No wonder I saw so many freaking white people there!! Seriously, my impression of Oregon is white bros, white yoga women and white hippies in VW Vanagons — I never saw so many VWs in my life…nor so many, many white people. They were all friendly and cool, but still….kinda creepy, like the Granola Stepford Wives!

Alas, after soaking awhile and only a glass and a half of wine, we had to dry off and leave for Klamath Falls…getting into that godforsaken little burg around 1am, and checking into yet another shitty motel. At least now that we were out of the Seattle area, motel prices were more reasonable — back in Everett and Federal Way I paid between $80-100 for a shitty room with a “Continental” breakfast — out here, the same deal was $50. And in Reno, the room was only $30 — no breakfast, of course…but who gives a fuck?!

But really…$30, $50, $80, $100….that shit adds up! Next time I do a modeling trip, I have to have some kind of van or RV, as lodging is really ridiculous. My problem is, I have to wash my hair pretty much every night before a photo shoot — and that can be hard to do in a van. So I guess what I really need to do is sign up for a 24Hour Fitness membership, so I can use one of their gyms wherever I go. Hmmmm…all things to consider, when I think about becoming a vandweller.

The next morning, it was time for my final shoot of the tour — some kinda cheesy strip-poker site based in Reno, NV. We headed down from Klamath Falls through the Lassen area, stopping in Susanville to buy lottery tickets (my sis felt Susanville was just the type of weird podunk town where winning tickets would be sold…alas, neither of us won), and then came down the 395 into Reno. Along the way, we stopped on a friend’s advice to check out Zamboni Hot Springs…but I am sad to report, they are no longer open to the public. There’s some kind of nutty hippie pottery studio there, and I’ll bet you anything they have their own private soak going on…but the guy was kinda weird and didn’t invite us in or anything, so we left, and headed for the fabulous Sands Regency Hotel in ever-glamorous Reno, NV.

Acutally, Reno was way nicer than I’d expected — I’d never really spent any time there, but I found it to be a super cute, quaint, fun little town with great outdoorsy options and a thriving hipster marketplace full of bars, restaurants and vintage shops. I really liked it! Now granted, this was summer — I’m sure in the winter it gets clogged up with sno-bros, just like everywhere else with mountains. Yecccchhh. But during my visit, it was great — I ran five miles along the Truckee River Trail, and really enjoyed myself. All races of people were out and about, walking their dogs and riding bikes, and I only saw one or two bums…a far cry from Vegas!

Anyway, my reason for being there was this awesomely cheesy photo shoot. I met the photographer at his home, where we shot the first video: me dressed in a horticulturist’s outfit, trimming a bush in the backyard. Then I stop and put down my shears: “Hmmm!” Cut to me stripping my clothes off and displaying my own bush, which I then proceed to trim up with scissors and a razor, in the shower. Classy!!!

The rest of the shoot was at this studio inside the photographer’s place of employment — I got the feeling he sneaks in there to shoot stuff on the downlow, since the company he works for has a badass studio setup but makes a different type of product that isn’t totally unrelated to strip poker, but I guess isn’t into nudity. Anyway, we shot some videos of me in some kind of sexy Star Wars costume, swinging around a lightsaber and stripping naked, and that was pretty much that — the end of my Pacific Northwest Nude Modeling Tour of 2014!! I got my money, counted up my total, and found that I have enough to pay for a new laptop, a new cell phone, and a chemical peel (I had a terrible breakout last month)…woo hoo!!!!! If I subtract all the gas and hotel money, I probably came out a little behind….but it’s all good; I had a blast and so did my sis (I think).

From Reno, I cruised back through California to my starting point, near Santa Rosa, on July 25. 10 days, 2,526 miles…and no flat tires, no speeding tickets, and no cancellations 🙂 YAY!!

As mentioned, I did have one more shoot a couple days later, in Petaluma — I was kinda sketched out by this one, since I got it off Craigslist, the guy had no Model Mayhem profile, and he wanted to shoot in an industrial park area. They always warn you about shit like that in Amateur Modeling 101…ya know?

But it turned out to be totally cool — he had no Model Mayhem account because he was insecure about the quality of his work, but after leafing through his portfolio, I told him with 100% certainty that he needn’t be so bashful — usually, it’s the other way around, with photographers being overly boastful about the quality of their work, which can sometimes test the limits of the (admittedly subjective) word “art.” But this guy’s was fine.

Anyway, he was a really nice man, and he seemed so pleased with me that it gave the confidence to start thinking about doing another modeling roadtrip…maybe in the fall, after Burning Man. But where?? I’ve been wanting to check out New Mexico, so maybe a Havasu-Phoenix-Tucson-Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Flagstaff-Vegas loop? Or what about Colorado? I could do Vegas-Salt Lake-Cheyenne-Denver…the problem with these western states is, the population is so spread out, it takes forever to get from city to city. But as long as I made enough cheese to pay for my gas and incidentals, I’d be happy…I love roadtripping, and I’d love to see more of the country that way 🙂

Whatever the case, I definitely need to start working on some kind of camper option — whether a van or a camper shell for my truck bed; either way I’m totally comfortable sleeping in a WalMart parking lot, and brushing my teeth in the bushes or whatever. I just need to get the hairwashing part figured out — anyone work for 24Hour Fitness that can hook a sister up?? 😀 😀 😀

 

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• jill ireland nude

 

there was a beautiful, peaceful nudist retreat in a forest, high in the golden rolling hills above Calistoga. Magical healing waters flowed from the ground, and people came from miles and miles around to soak their weary bones in the springs and the sunshine. One day, a wandering hussy from a faraway land followed a traveling minstrel into this magical realm…and shit was royally fucked, ever after!

Fairytales aside, I like to come across as a hard-ass in my public persona. But the truth is that I’m a pathetically sensitive sap who’s just looking for love and kindness, like most people. I maintain my brash shtick as a defensive maneuver, because I don’t trust anybody — the world is full of assholes!

Well, apparently there was a chink in my armor, because despite my most valiant efforts, some feelings recently seeped in. Or maybe it was the ayahuasca — when I did that ceremony back in June, my “intention” going in was to open up more, and let people in. Well, what do you know — the very next week a traveling jagoff in a hippie van crashed into my life, and fucked everything up!

You remember my dear pal Jack Johnson — the random fan from the Internet with whom I met up in the middle of the desert last month, then ended up having weirdly intense sex with in the back of his van on a backstreet in a quiet L.A. suburb overlooking the Santa Monica Pier? Yeah, that asshole! Well, I don’t know what kind of spell he put on me, but it’s like he had a bayonet on the tip of his dick, and stabbed the shit out of my heart.

After he drove off down Sunset Blvd., I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see him again…and to be honest I was pretty bummed about it, and I’m not gonna lie, shed a few tears. But surprisingly he kept in regular contact, and we arranged to meet up when we were both in the San Francisco Bay Area this past week. He was doing a gig at some Italian restaurant in S.F., so I planned to come see him play, after which we would both drive up to Calistoga to check out the legendary Harbin Hot Springs nudist retreat for a couple days. Since we’d had so much fun on our Deep Creek sojourn, I was really looking forward to it.

Still, as I made the 11-hour drive up from Vegas, I was uncertain. I suck at relationships, and this guy in particular was hard to read; I couldn’t tell if he was really into me or not, and I didn’t want to get too excited about someone I was unsure of — I’m timid about showing too much interest in anyone, for fear of ending up a patsy. But just as I was pulling into the Bay Area, around 1am, he called me in a drunken stupor and laid all kinds of crazy effusive affectionate shit on me. Was it drunk talk, or in vino veritas??

Ill-advisedly, I took it as the latter…and like I said, was really looking forward to hanging out with him again. I rarely meet anyone I get along with as well as I did with him…and to be totally honest, I was also looking forward to having sex again — I was more open with him than any sexual partner I’ve ever had, and it was an embarrassingly big deal for me.

At first, things seemed peachy — I arranged to meet up with him the afternoon of his show, so we could drive into the city together, and he even invited me to accompany him to some gigs up in the Mt. Shasta area after our hot springs retreat…a little taste of his freewheeling life on the road. It would have been a total blast, but I declined because I also needed to spend some time with my family up here; I can’t blow them off totally just because I have itchy pants for some random troubadour, ya know?

In any event, he didn’t seem offended, so I got all dolled up and drove down the 101 to meet him in Marin county, just across the Golden Gate Bridge, in a gym parking lot. I was super nervous, but he rolled up and gave me huge hug and a little kiss…so I figured we were more or less right back where we left off, and climbed aboard his van again for another wild ride with the circus of broken hearts.

This was the first time I’d ever seen him perform live, and he was really good — he plays a kind of old-timey steel guitar roots music, and works a sort of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” sartorial shtick. The gig was in a little tiny Italian restaurant, so while he played, I sat at the artists’ table (reserved for the bands and their family/friends) and had dinner and a couple glasses of wine. It was one of those slightly chi-chi San Francisco joints full of Botox matrons and upscale yuppies, so I felt a little dingy in my jeans and straw cowboy hat…but jeez, I didn’t know! It’s fuckin’ roots music, for chrissakes!

Anyhoo, afterward we went out for drinks with another one of the fans who came to see him, this really nice chick whose dad was in the Grateful Dead. I guess he had met her backstage at a concert a while back, and he was fascinated by her family history, and now he talked to her for hours at this awesome little dive bar near the corner of Haight and Ashbury while I hung around the periphery, drinking vodka tonics and chatting with the other kooky winos in the joint. I guess I kinda felt like a third wheel, but the bar was super cool — a smoky old-school jazz joint with two crazy Jewish bohemians on piano and drums, totally Kerouac and totally far-out, so it was right up my alley and I had a pretty good time.

Anyway, by the time the three of us finally left, we were all totally fucked up. We got in Jack’s van and they started listening to some of the other chick’s dad’s music, and I guess all the talk about her dad made me start thinking about my dad, who committed suicide a few years back. I pretty well internalized all my sadness over that, but occasionally it leaks out (usually if I’ve been drinking) — and before you know it, I was awkwardly bawling my eyes out.

To be fair, it wasn’t strictly because of my dad — I also heard Jack say something about his girlfriend, and that’s what set me off. At Deep Creek, you may recall I fended him off as long as possible because he had mentioned being in a supposedly open relationship with another woman…but he was so persistent, and the sexual attraction was so strong, that despite having severe misgivings, I ended up caving like a bitch and giving up my puss. Well, in the process, come to find out I also gave up my heart :-/ Hearing him mention his girlfriend gave me a sinking feeling that it was much more serious than he’d let on, and for some reason it just killed me! But also, I was super drunk…so it could have just been the booze.

Either way, all three of us passed out in the back of the van in Golden Gate Park, my insomniac ass wedged between their peacefully snoring bodies. I was still weeping like a little bitch, and before he passed out Jack tried to stick his hand down my pants — so I elbowed the shit out of him. I wasn’t in the mood, ya know? And besides, the Grateful Dead chick — I’ll call her Cass– was right next to me! Thankfully, I finally passed out around 4:30am, and got at least a few hours’ sleep.

When we woke up, Cass had already left, the van was enshrouded in thick fog, and my tongue was enshrouded in thick nastiness. Alas, my toothbrush and stuff were in my truck, which was parked back in Marin County. Also, it felt like my head was full of a thousand little MMA fighters beating the shit out of each other — hangover from hell! Jack dosed me with Advil and offered to let me use his toothbrush, but I grumpily insisted on waiting til I got to my truck. I was still kinda sour about the night before, I guess…but once I was able to brush my teeth (in the parking lot of a Jo Ann Fabrics, nonetheless) and wash off my makeup (at a McDonald’s bathroom), I felt much better. We got coffee, and headed back up north on the 101 toward Harbin Hot Springs, me following Jack’s van like a faithful puppy. Or more accurately, like a bloody heart being dragged up the freeway on a leash made of blind ignorance!!

Now, a word about Harbin Hot Springs, where we were headed — it’s a 5,000-acre retreat in the hills above Calistoga, popular among Bay Area nudists, New Agers and hippies, said to be an astonishingly beautiful place of relaxation and reflection, with several pools fed by natural hot spring water from an ancient sacred source. I’d heard about it for years, but the consensus was divided as to whether it was a peaceful Zen sanctuary or lurid Sextown, U.S.A. I was really curious to check it out, so when Jack suggested it, I was all in.

Harbin is pretty remote, just outside a quaint little village called Middletown, where Jack suggested I leave my truck parked so we could drive into the resort together. So I threw my things into his van, and without even really thinking about it something made me throw my tent and sleeping bag in, too — I think I was afraid that if Harbin turned out to be a hotbed of sex he’d try and hook up with another couple, and I wasn’t into that, so wanted to make sure I had a safe haven. But I honestly assumed I was sleeping in his van with him.

Anyway, we checked in, goofing around as usual with the gate staff, and set up camp — Harbin has beautiful guest rooms, cottages and domes you can stay in, but us broke-ass hippies are on a perpetual budget, so we just camped, which is $30/night, per person, and includes 24 hours of access to the facilities. Not bad! After setting up, we headed to check out the pools, and go for a relaxing soak.

**Note: Harbin does not allow photography, so all the cheesy photos that follow are from their website.**

The facilities at Harbin really are beautiful!! I guess you could call the aesthetic “rustic Zen chic” — lots of crumbling stone walls, lush landscaping, quiet grottoes and little Buddha statues in every nook. Meanwhile there are several soaking pools, ranging from the super, super hot (my favorite) to the icy cold. The idea is, you go from the super hot pool to the super cold plunge, back and forth, to get your circulation going…and they also have a sauna and steam room for the same type of effect. My only beef was, there’s no Jacuzzi-temperature soaking pool — there’s a sort of lukewarm heart-shaped “conversation” pool, but it wasn’t really warm enough for my taste…and the next-hottest pool was around 114 degrees, and way too hot to hang out in for long.

Also, silence is mandated in most of the pools, except for the heart pool and the big lap pool…Harbin is more of a meditative place than a social place, I guess, which sucks for a long-winded conversationalist like me. But on the plus side, I didn’t really see any sexual activity going on in any of the pools — there were lots of couples holding each other and caressing, but nothing freaky or overtly sexual. Maybe it was partly due to all the “NO SEXUAL ACTIVITY” signs posted everywhere — it reminded me of when I was an extra in that porn move earlier this year, and they had all those fake “NO FUCKING” signs in the office. Lulz!

Well anyway, I didn’t realize just how dry the place would turn out to be until we were walking back to camp to cook dinner, and out of nowhere, Jack casually let it drop in conversation that he had decided to be a “good boy” and not have sex this trip, after all. It seems that while at the time of our Deep Creek sojourn his relationship had been an open one, in the meantime he had decided to commit, and just decided to tell me now.

Whaaat? You should have heard the shit he said to me on the phone Saturday night!! This new declaration was so unexpected, I felt like a china setting from under which some bumbling magician had just yanked a tablecloth — the ground flew out from under me, and I crashed down hard. But ever the wannabe hardass, I tried to keep a blank face and take it in stride: “Oh, yeah?” But inside, I was like, “Jeez, now you tell me!! After I just shelled out $65 to camp out for two nights!!”

Talk about awkward! If my truck had been there, I honestly would have left then and there. More than anything, I was horribly embarrassed — not only did I feel like a homewrecker, but I was acutely ashamed of myself for having been so excited to see him, and at having such feelings for him. I should have fuckin’ known…arrrrrrghhh!! But since my truck was parked down in the town, I was trapped — trapped in a paradise of serenity, love and openness, with the devil running around taunting me. SUPER awkward!!!

Anyway, I guess I hid my distress well enough, because we went back to camp and he made dinner like nothing had happened….while I stood on a rock nearby, staring into a beautiful ravine, trying not to bawl my eyes out. For once in my life I had zero appetite, so while he ate and chatted with our neighbor, I stood by in stunned silence — the boring old punched-in-the-solar-plexus-bleeding-bruised-heart shtick, happens all the time, nothing new to see here, move along! It’s trite, it’s boring, and it happens every day…but it’s still a real bitch, as I’m sure most of you know 🙁

Meanwhile, there is no rational explanation for the devastation I felt — I barely knew this tool, so I don’t understand how I came to care for him so deeply. WTF?!?!? It’s like I said…he put a spell on me, or something. Shit!

THANKFULLY, there happened to be a dance party going on that very night, with a dj and all, so I left camp and headed over to check that out, thinking that if I were around other people, it might ease the pain somewhat. At first I thought it was being held in the temple — this amazingly beautiful, J.R.R. Tolkienesque building about a five-minute walk from our camp. But when I got there, the building was deserted; I went inside, and had the entire place to myself. So I sat cross-legged in the very center, under the skylight in the fading twilight, and bawled my eyes out!!! If you must moon about with a broken heart, you might as well do it in ultra-dramatic fashion, in a fabulously surreal setting like that temple…ya know?? At least it was cinematic!! But the whole place was so surreally beautiful, it just seemed wrong to be so miserable there.

Anyway, after weeping awhile, I figured it wasn’t really doing me any good, and being around people would help me a lot more — so I got up and continued on to look for the dance party, which turned out to be across a little lighted footbridge, in the conference center. When I opened the door, I was greeted by a dj spinning some kind of trance/house hybrid in a huge mirrored room with a hardwood floor, full of barefoot hippies and New Agers dancing like the Charlie Brown kids on acid. I mean, you’ve never seen white people dancing like this!! They were all over the place! Old men, young bucks, hot yoga sluts and middle-aged matrons, all spazzing out and letting themselves just go with the music. It was crazy!!

But it was just the right thing for me in my miserable state — I literally ran into the room, and threw myself into dancing like a possessed demon!! You know how they say certain religions get into a meditative trancelike state of ecstasy through dance? Well, that was me — I had on my garishly brilliant friendmaker caftan-robe, with nothing but a loincloth underneath, and I just whirled about like a fiery Phoenix, swooshing my robe about me like brilliant porange-and-purple flames, swishing in every direction, sometimes just running madly around the room with the robe flying behind me like great porange-and-purple wings! I must have been quite the sight — half the time I wore a huge, blissed-out smile (I’m a shitty dancer, but I love when I’m in a groove with a bunch of other people; it’s better than any drug, and makes me beam like an idiot). The rest of the time, tears streamed down my face as I whirled around and around, like a centrifuge trying to fling away sadness. It was so therapeutic!!!!!

I must have danced like that for an hour or two — I mean, balls-out craziness — and when I stopped for a water break, who should I spy but Cass, the Grateful Dead guy’s daughter! Jack had invited her to meet us up there, and despite her misgivings (she’s really shy and self-conscious about her body), she actually showed up. It was a good thing I ran into her, as there is no cell reception up there, and in the darkness it would have been next to impossible to find us (remember, it’s a 5,000-acre resort!). As I showed her back to our camp, I told her the whole sordid story of what was going on, and she was very supportive — I mean, she is just a nice woman. I think she felt kind of awkward being there, and even offered to leave, but I told her I was glad she was there, to break up the tension.

Anyway, we met up with Jack and headed back to the pools to soak some more, all three of us ending up in the heart-shaped pool, ironically. They were still talking about her dad and music and stuff, so I tried to make conversation with some of the other soakers…but there just wasn’t anyone super interesting to talk to…or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood. After a while, we all went back to camp — I crawled into my tent, and Jack and Cass slept in the van. It has two bunks, and Gentleman Jack took the top one…but it was still a lonely sound to hear the door slam, me on the outside with the coyotes howling in the distance. Wonderhussy….ever the lone wolf.

I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and of course all this bullshit made it even worse, so I was awake at sunrise, wandering around a golden field dotted with oak trees in my friendmaker robe, still bedeviled by stupid tears, watching the abundant wildlife roam around — that place has deer, turkeys, quail, foxes, rabbits…all kinds of shit wandering merrily around, like a Disney movie! When Jack and Cass woke up we made coffee and breakfast, but I still had no appetite, so just chugged coffee and tried to look alive before we headed to the pools for the day.

Before heading to the pools, Jack suggested Cass drive me back into town so I could check on my truck — not that he was really concerned about my truck itself, but he had left his amp and some of his gear in it, and I guess wanted to make sure it was still there. So she kindly took me down to Middletown to check, and it was still there…and I figured I might as well drive it back up to Harbin, in case I needed to bail at a moment’s notice. So now at least I had an escape hatch.

At the pools, I basically spent the entire day moping — moving from one pool to the next, trying to stanch the well of sadness inside me. I can’t believe what a fuckin’ baby I was about this — like I said, I barely knew this guy, but I was disappointed beyond all rational measure, and just could not stop crying. Tears just kept leaking out, in the hot pool, in the cold pool, in the steam room and even in the sauna — hell, I even watered the hot rocks in the sauna with teardrops to make steam out of my sadness!! It was ridiculous how sad I was…and I could not cheer up. I could not enjoy this beautiful place — everywhere I looked, it was hippie-dippie couples in love, caressing and enjoying each other, and I was alone and miserable. Boo-fuckin’-hoo.

The only thing that got me through were drugs and alcohol — both strictly prohibited at Harbin, but both completely necessary to my survival that day. I was very discreet about it, and ate a bit of pot cookie to get me through — to dull my senses. I feel bad about violating their policy, which is in place because there are a lot of recovering addicts living full-time at Harbin, but I just could’t handle my life sober that day. I was too fucking sad!!!

Anyway, I got into this routine Jack showed me — sauna, then steam room, then ice plunge; then repeat. Apparently that’s what they do way up in the frozen tundra, where he’s from. I did this triad over and over and over again, all day long, singing my own version of that song from “South Pacific” in my head: “I’m gonna sweat that man right outta my pores!!” It didn’t really work, but I definitely got a good shvitz…so I guess all was not lost. But between all the soaking and all the tears, I was really waterlogged by the end of that day.

Meanwhile, the only thing to distract me from my melancholia was the fabulous people watching: most of Harbin’s patrons are run-of-the-mill hippies and Bay Area New Agers, but it was a pretty diverse crowd, with even a few minorities in the mix…not just old white people, for a change! My favorite was this bespectacled, bearded old man in a bathrobe and a huge straw hat, who sat around sucking on his index finger all day, every day. I mean, he had his finger in his mouth all the way to the first knuckle — and just sat there, sucking on it, staring around. Freaky!!!

Then of course too, there were plenty of naked guys hanging around, trying to hit on me. I was offered more than one massage, and one guy even told me how he and his wife are looking for a third person to come into their marriage, and invited me to stay with him if I’m ever in New York (people come from far and wide to soak at Harbin…it’s well known). Unfortunately, I was not attracted to any of them — like I said, I’m hardly ever attracted to anyone — but I did at least get some interesting information from a couple of them.

As I was soaking in the heart pool, one old dude struck up a conversation with me (as he was massaging me, of course) and told me about these secret hot springs in Marin county. See, where I live (Mojave desert), there are tons of natural hot springs dotting the landscape, where you can just hike in and soak for free. In California, they’re all developed, and charge you an arm and a leg to get in…so I asked this guy if he knew of any undeveloped springs in the area, and he told me about these ones right on the coast in Marin County, that can only be reached during super low tide during a certain phase of the moon!! Wow!!!

But, shhhhhh!!!! He warned me that they were top secret, and that the locals didn’t take kindly to others finding out about their spot, so I had to keep it all on the down-low. But guess what? Not 20 minutes later, another old perv showed up and told me about the exact same springs, with the same caveat not to tell anyone, because they are “secret.” HA!!! I guess they’re not that fuckin’ secret, eh?? Meanwhile, I looked them up on Yelp and the reviews all emphasize how rude and hostile the locals are to anyone who comes to soak there — those rich uptight assholes think it’s like their private thing, or something. Fuckers! If anyone in the Bay Area wants to go check them out with me, let me know — I’ll be here til August, and might even stay til Burning Man.

Anyhoo, while all this was going on I really felt like the mature thing would be to talk to Jack Johnson a little and find out what was going on, or at least tell him how I felt, just to get it out in the open. All this time I was still hiding my feelings, trying to be cool — I was being really quiet, so I think he thought I was mad at him, which I wasn’t…I was just disappointed and sad. But with Cass there it would have been too awkward to talk, so I just sat around and soaked and festered. But as the day wore on and I sweat more and more, I managed to pretty much get myself under control….and by the time Cass left around 4pm, I was in much better shape.

Around that time Jack wanted to eat the mushrooms I’d brought along, and I figured why not? It would certainly beat sitting around sober and miserable all night! So we each ate a small dose, and because we hadn’t been eating very much food the past couple of days (especially me; I had a virtually empty stomach), we tripped our balls off!!! It was amazing!!! Sweating in the sauna, shvitzing in the steam room, then plunging in the ice pool — it was all really trippy on shrooms. We were pretty discreet about it, not wanting to piss off the brass at Harbin…but it was great!!! I even managed to laugh a little — ahh, the wonderful healing powers of psilocybin 🙂

After a few hours, we went back to camp to eat dinner…and finally had an extremely awkward conversation about the situation. Jack said he has a history of making bad decisions, and had finally decided to start making better choices — which I guess means I’m a bad decision…d’oh! Or maybe he just meant being unfaithful to his girlfriend was a bad decision, I don’t know. All I know is, I told him I felt like a country song, because I had a busted tailgate and a broken heart — and he seemed genuinely surprised to hear that I had a broken heart. Which was the saddest thing of all — he had no idea what was going on, and it was obviously one-sided. D’OH!!! A few tears fell into my salad, but I didn’t really make a scene — just let him know how I felt :/ It wasn’t really as bad as it could have been, and it was definitely a relief to at least let him know…ya know?

Then he started in telling me how I need to leave Vegas, how it’s a poison place, and not right for me, and I surround myself with idiots as part of my shtick, but it’s not really me. And the sad thing is, he was kinda right — I’m not really into having my toes sucked or my twat photographed by some slavering fuckin’ perv who won’t stop trying to get me to open my legs wider, wider, wider — it makes for good blog copy, but other than that, it is kinda depressing. I wish I could figure out a way to make money based off my brain, not my twat. I just don’t know what! I have a fuckin’ art degree, for Pete’s sake…I’m adrift.

As for Vegas, I’m torn — part of me truly loves living in the desert, and I do enjoy how easy it is to make a buck in that crazy city. But lately, I’ve been feeling a little Vegas-ed out…which is part of the reason I took off for California. At heart, I’m a total Nor Cal granola hippie dippie ding dong, and whenever I come back here, I feel like I’m home. But I don’t think I’d want to be here all the time. Which is why I need a van to travel around in — then I can come and go, chasing the odd buck, traveling around meeting interesting people and writing about it, homeless and adrift and still a lone wolf….but in bad ass style!!!

Anyway, after talking for quite a while, we went for a night soak and then headed to bed. I suffered another shitty, sleepless night, dreading the morning and the awkward, unbearably sad good-bye I was facing. It was sad enough when I left him the first time — now it was ten times worse!!

That last day, Jack didn’t have to be at his next gig until the evening, so he planned to stay at Harbin until our 48 hour pass was up at 4pm. I had told my mom I’d leave around noon, so I kinda dragged my ass around, stalling, until then. I soaked in the super-hot pool, then plunged in the super cold pool, and did that invigorating rotation a few times. I hiked up the hill to this awesome little teahouse perched way on top of one of the mountain, overlooking the entire valley, that had a meditation area and an altar where you could write down your intentions and prayers and shit, and scribbled down a bit of heartsick drivel and tucked it under a Buddha foot or some bullshit.

Then I decided to decorate my hat — on all my travels of late, I’ve been wearing this straw cowboy-type hat I’ve had forever, but only started wearing around recently. I stuck a bunch of pins and buttons and stuff on it to personalize it, but now I decided I would add a little memento from each of my adventures to the mix — a fake flower I found at Deep Creek (when I went with my sister), a seashell from Mexico, a bottlecap from one of Jack Johnson’s beers, and now I made a little decorative rosette out of reeds from one of the landscaping plants at Harbin. This hat tells the story of my Summer of 2014…and I think at the end of the summer, I might burn it — maybe in the temple fire at Burning Man, I don’t know. Anyway, I thought it was a cool idea!

But finally, it was time to stop stalling and get the fuck out of there…so I put on my friendmaker robe and hat, gathered my things, and went to find Jack Johnson to say goodbye. I found him over by the cold pool, and bid farewell in the midst of a bunch of naked New Agers, who barely looked on as we hugged each other one last time. “We’ll still go exploring stuff together sometime, eh?” he said…but I just shrugged, squeaking out a lame “Yeah, maybe.” Then I blew him a kiss and flashed him a peace sign, and walked off to my truck…which I now discovered had a cracked windshield, in addition to a busted tailgate. Damn, I’m a wreck!!!

And that was that — bury my heart at Harbin Hot springs! It’s a beautiful, peaceful place, and I wholeheartedly recommend it…but I’m not sure I’ll ever go back. Aside from my bad associations with it, they probably won’t let me go back, after reading about my drug use!!! But in my defense, I was going through some really tough times up there…so cut me some slack, willya, guys?

So anyway, on the drive back to my mom’s house, I started thinking… if life really were like a fairytale, or the modern Hollywood equivalent, shit would have gone down much differently! Picture Natalie Portman as Wonderhussy, a burned-out nude model cruising around in a beat-up pickup like a busted-up rodeo cowboy, making one last modeling trip around the West Coast. Matthew McConaughey as Jack Johnson, a confused and directionless vagabond, afraid to tap into his true potential, working an endless circuit of one-night gigs in smoky bars and dancehalls. Their paths cross, drama ensues, then they help each other find true love and freedom: Natalie inspires Matthew to finish his album, which goes onto resounding success. And Matthew inspires Natalie to write her memoirs, which are then optioned by Hollywood and made into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Matthew McConaughey. Whoa!

Alas, however… this ain’t Hollywood, and that shit ain’t happening. And this sure as fuck ain’t no fairy tale!!! If my and Jack Johnson’s Deep Creek trip was charmed…this trip was cursed!

The real answer might lie in my aforementioned busted tailgate: it broke back in June, at Deep Creek, right around the same time as my heart. Maybe if I fix it now, it’ll break the spell of Jack Johnson — who, ironically, offered to help me fix it…then either forgot or changed his mind.

Sigh.

 

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• nude photos from harbin

Well friends, I finally checked another item off my bucket list by going to Mexico last week. But my destination was not some pansy-assed all-inclusive resort full of pasty Alabama factory workers pounding beers while Sammy Hagar wails in the background — I went Gonzo, and drove down into the dusty, dirty hinterlands of Baja California!

My sister has been on a sort of corporate detox/Rumspringa since quitting her loathsome marketing job back in February, and accepted the offer of an ex-colleague to stay at his family’s beach house down near San Felipe for a couple weeks, to chill out and meditate and think things through. I had to work the first week she was down there, but after I finished with the licensing expo and the beauty show and whatnot, I packed up my truck and drove down to join her.

It’s not that far from Vegas to San Felipe — about 8 hours, depending on the whims of the border guards. My sister sailed through the border with no problem at all — they didn’t even check her milquetoast little Infiniti, just waved her through. But since I drive a pickup, they did make me stop and explain in my sad güera Spanish where I was going, why I was going, where I came from and what I do. Fuck, I can’t even explain that shit in English!!! ¿Como se dice “hussy” en Español?

Anyway, I somehow bungled through, and they let me in, after banging on the sides of my truck bed a few times to roust out any hidden contraband (I guess people are known to smuggle drug cash in pickup truck beds, is why I was flagged). What those poor fuckers didn’t know was that I’d thought ahead, and had already stashed all my drugs in a secret hidey-hole in the desert, so I could pick them up on my way back from Mexico, when my sis and I planned to camp out at Deep Creek for a couple nights before heading back home.

Since there was no way I was spending two nights at Deep Creek with no weed to smoke or shrooms to eat, and since I couldn’t exactly bring it all back and forth across the border with me, on my way down I scoped out a quiet spot behind some bushes at an intersection just outside the town of Brawley, and buried my little sack o’ fun for later retrieval. The ultimate Geocache!!! So anyhoo, by the time I rolled into Mexico, there was nothing for those rifle-wielding teenagers at the border to find. I did bring one special chocolate chip cookie, camouflaged in a bag of regular chocolate chip cookies, and an empty pipe, since my sis had indicated she’d found a connect down there. But aside from that, I was clean as a whistle. ¡No problemo!

I entered Mexico just south of the Salton Sea, through this shitty little town called Calexico on the U.S. side, Mexicali on the Mexican side. Jeez, I thought Calexico was shitty — Mexicali was a whole other world of shittiness! Dogs roaming around, garbage everywhere, leathery toothless beggars and just a general air of steamy, sun-baked, sewage-scented lethargy and decay.  Awesome!!

But after passing through Mexicali, it was basically just two hours of desolate, barren desert highway, nothing but sagebrush and busted tires, with the Sea of Cortez off to the left. That is some serious wasteland — most of the touristy stuff you see in Baja is on the Pacific side of the peninsula, Ensenada and Tijuana and all that, but the east coast of Baja is pretty much just vast, empty desert. And in late June it was screaming, broiling hot; I can’t imagine how desperate a poor illegal immigrant would have to be to undertake a crossing by foot — it really speaks to the hopelessness of their situation!

Meanwhile, if you’re coming from the other side of the border, Baja is a great place to hide out! The desert and the beaches are sporadically dotted with rusted-out trailers, campers, shanties and bizarre compounds housing god-knows-what type of hippies/hermits/fugitives, with the occasional beachfront campo made up of retired American expats living on the cheap in fairly nice homes…out of sight and out of mind from meddlesome U.S. tax and legal authorities. It’s a real mix of weirdos down there. In other words…I felt right at home!!!

The place I was headed for was called Pete’s Camp, about 7 km north of San Felipe; basically a tidy little beachfront community of U.S. and Canadian retirees living out their their days boozing and racing around on quads and dune buggies. There’s a big redneck speed freak demographic down around San Felipe, and everyone has “toy” collections made up of various motorized contraptions upon which they careen madly about for fun and profit in various off-road races. I personally don’t get it, but that stuff is huge down there!

Now this was late June, so things were pretty quiet — it gets hotter than balls down there in the summertime, so many people board up their homes and take off for the season, returning in September when it’s not so unbearably baking hot and humid. Only the dregs were left behind, and it was a real fun crowd, let me tell you! There’s a little cantina in the middle of the campo where everyone hung out to watch the World Cup, and since they had free Wi-Fi, I spent a lot of time there myself, drinking Cuba libres and posting shit on Facebook.

In between postings, I found time to chat with many of the locals, and like I said they were a fun bunch. Alkies, boozers, leathery-chested ladies and hard-drinking, teary-eyed men. Often they would tell you the same story over and over again, but they were all so nice that it didn’t matter. This one guy would come over and sip his double Jack and Coke while reciting a litany of all the toys he owned: “Three quads, two sand rails, dune buggy, Jeep, Trophy Truck, etc. etc. etc.,” and would invariably sum it all up by emphatically reminding himself how happy he was, and how great life was down there. Meanwhile, he always seemed just on the verge of breaking down in tears. Then there was this other cute little old — nay, ancient — man with a liver-spotted countenance and a terrible black eye, which he said he got when he “took a tumble” the other night (in a drunken stupor, no doubt). Awww!

The scuttlebutt was, there were also some unsavory types living in the area — pedophiles and whatnot, on the lam, hoping to escape detection. Like I said, it’s a pretty remote place… but apparently the Federales came in and arrested this one guy one day, and come to find out he had all this child pornography on his computer. Yikes!!!

In any event, all the people I met down there were amazingly kind and generous, in particular the Realtor who was handling the sale of the house my sis and I were staying at (it’s listed at $220k, if you’re interested…it was really nice, and right on the beach) and his wife. They had us over for dinner one night, and they were just the coolest people ever. Everyone down there, without exception, was super friendly and welcoming; my sis (having already been there for a week, and being about 30 years younger than everyone else) was already the Queen of the Campo by the time I got there!

Anyway, I rolled in around 5:30pm — everyone had warned me over and over again not to drive in Mexico at night, so I made sure to leave Vegas super early so as to arrive before sunset. But like everything else in life, I found Mexico to be way less scary and dramatic than everyone makes it out to be. I had zero problems down there, and it wasn’t because I was cute and flirty — I barely speak Spanish, and my face was going through a terrible breakout, so I was totally self-conscious and not on my A-game. But I was polite, alert and careful, and thus managed to bungle my through several checkpoints and car searches without incident nor payment of any specious “fines.” It was all good, in my experience!

Once I got down there, I basically did nothing but drink and eat. It was too fucking hot to do anything else!!! I did manage to drag my ass out of bed at 5am a couple times to run 5 miles on the beach, because sunrise was the only time it was cool enough…but other than that, I just laid low. In deference to the conservative culture, I wore a bikini most of the time, only tanning nude on this little crow’s nest patio on top of the garage, where no one could see.

We went out to San Felipe a few times to eat, but the rest of the time we just hung around the campo, relaxing. The house we were staying at was really nice, with air conditioning and nice bedrooms and everything, so it was basically like being at a hotel where you had nothing to do all day but relax and stare at the sea. But you know me — I can only take so much relaxing! My friend Bennie had given me this awesome guide to all the hot springs in the U.S. and Baja California, and I’m determined to visit as many as possible… so after a few days at the beach house, we packed up and headed down the coast a couple of hours to check out these nearby springs in the village of Puertecitos.

The springs are located in these beautiful tidal pools right on the edge of the Sea of Cortez, and there’s only a limited window each day during high tide when the mixture of seawater cools the thermal water in the pools to a comfortable soaking temperature. But if you camp out overnight, you can at least catch two tides…so we decided to bring our tents, and stay on the beach.

Now meanwhile, everyone at the cantina was warning us about the journey: the roads were said to be really rough, pitted with steep dips called “vados” that would fuck up your shocks if you didn’t drive slow…plus there’s no cell phone service down there, and it’s really remote. But what the fuck?! YOLO!! I took my truck, and we made it just fine. The road was nicely paved the entire way, and most of the vados were mild annoyances rather than shock-busting disasters. It was really remote, though, and there isn’t anything along the way, especially in the dead summer season when everyone with half a brain flees for the Pacific side of the peninsula.

But there was a little campground in Puertecitos, right on the beach about a ten-minute walk from the springs, where for $20 a night you get a little shaded picnic table, water, electricity and use of the toilets…plus unlimited use of the hot springs. There’s even a little lending library full of English-language paperbacks which was a real hoot — I “borrowed” a John Grisham thriller, which I do plan on returning or replacing upon my eventual return (I am the kind of person to really do that, I tell you!).

My pidgin Spanish was enough to ascertain that the tidal situation was just right to go soak as soon as we arrived, so after setting up camp, we hiked up to the springs, right at sunset. It was beautiful!! I swear, my new theme song is Itchycoo Park — lately it seems all I ever do is take drugs and cry about how beautiful shit is (well, not really). But these were definitely some of the most scenic hot springs I’ve ever been to!!! There are three or four large, fairly deep

soaking pools with super-clear water and rocky bottoms, and plenty of boulders to sit on while you soak and watch the sunset amid the pounding surf and squawking seagulls. The only drawback is, the water smells pretty strongly of sulphur, which eventually you sort of get used to, I guess. But what I never got used to was the thousands of super-creepy bugs skittering all over the rocks!!! They looked like a prehistoric combination of a leech and cockroach, and they were scurrying about everywhere!!! Some of them were up to two inches long — SHUDDER!!!!!! The smell and the bugs prevent me from giving these hot springs an A+ rating, but it’s still an amazing place. Just be advised!

Anyway, after sunset we hiked back down to our campsite on the bay, and drank wine and munched on whatever shitty snacks we’d brought — there’s no restaurant or anything like that in Puertecitos, at least not in the summertime. This cute little mouse kept bugging us though, running onto our blanket, trying to steal food. We kept scaring it away, even going so far as to pull out some stun guns my Arkansas girlfriend had given me, and zapping them in the mouse’s direction…but the dumb little fucker wasn’t fazed, so I finally bashed it with a tire iron and killed it!!! AWWW!! All I wanted to do was scare it away, but I guess I was a bit overzealous 🙁 Don’t come between me and my food!

Anyhoo, we woke up at sunrise and went for a half-assed little run back up to the springs, where we enjoyed a fantastic sunrise soak. That place is amazingly photogenic!! Even my shitty little Samsung Galaxy got these amazing shots! Imagine what you could do with a real camera 🙂 Once the sun came up and it got too hot, we went back to camp, packed up, and drove back down to San Felipe for a few more relaxing days of boozing and

reading. That John Grisham thriller came just in time — I had just finished my other book about Ted Bundy that one of my fans sent me from my Amazon wish list. We blew through the rest of our pesos on ceviche and Cuba libres, and then used the remainder to haggle for a cheap hammock at a souvenir shop in town. Good times!

All in all, it was a fantastic trip…but I was really looking forward to the drive back. The plan was to head directly to Deep Creek hot springs for a couple days, then my sis would continue on to the Bay Area, and I’d go back to Vegas to do some laundry, lift weights, and pack up for my July west coast modeling trip. Everyone in Pete’s Camp told us to hit the border around 10-11am for optimal traffic, but we didn’t manage to leave San Felipe around 9:30am, so came to Mexicali right at noon — one of the worst times of all!! The line to cross into the U.S. was recockulous!!!!

At first I didn’t mind sitting in line so much, because I finally had cell phone service and was able to check my voicemail and stuff. But after an hour or so, it got old pretty fast — it was broiling, baking, screaming hot and humid, and even my a/c quit blowing cold after awhile. Talk about First World Problems — meanwhile, hordes of poor resourceful locals were out in the direct sun, working the lines of cars, selling everything from window shades to iced coffee, with a few beggars thrown in for measure. This one poor legless man was scooting along the broiling asphalt on a piece of cardboard, dragging himself from car to car with his hands, which were protected from the searing ground by nothing but playing cards. It was surreal, like the 10th circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno — all these poor, desperate souls writhing and melting in the relentless sun, knocking on windows like damned wraiths in the depths of Hades. FUCK!!

Anyway, we finally made it to the checkpoint, and of course were singled out for special searches — me because of my truck, and my sister just randomly. I only had a small chunk of cookie left (those cookies are strong, and you only need to eat a tiny piece to get baked as fuck), and I had cleaned out my pipe with boiling water as best as possible, so I wasn’t really too concerned. They made me pull over, open my hood, and wait in a cage while they searched my stuff for drugs or hidden people or whatever the fuck they’re trying to protect us from. What a fuckin’ circus!!

Meanwhile, my drugs were waiting for me in my little cache not 50 miles away 🙂 After finally clearing the border and being allowed back into the sacred U.S.A., we stopped for lunch in Calexico and plotted the rest of the day. My hot springs book showed a cool looking little spot called the Five Palms Warm Well Oasis in the desert outside Brawley, not far from my cache, so we decided to hit that up before unearthing the treasure and heading up to Deep Creek.

To get to the Five Palms Warm Well Oasis, you take CA-78 east of Brawley for 15 miles, then turn off south on a dirt road for 1.6 miles. The road was said to be easily passable, but of course the sand was all tore up by crazy quadders from the nearby Glamis Sand Dunes redneck paradise, so wouldn’t you know it….my truck got bogged down in the sand about a half mile from the springs 🙁 🙁 🙁 Damn! We tried to get out by putting firewood and towels and stuff under the rear tires, but it was no use — I was stuck. I called AAA, but because I was more than 10 feet off the paved road, they wouldn’t cover the cost of a tow truck…so I had to shell out $150. D’OH!!!! Expensive little detour!

While we were waiting for the tow truck to get there, we went ahead and hiked the last .5 miles to the Oasis, which was easy to spot as it was the only cluster of palm trees for miles and miles and miles around. Let me tell you, that place is a true oasis — it’s so unexpected!! There you are, in the middle of a vast, barren desertscape of sand, creosote and sagebrush, and then all of a sudden here’s this little cluster of palms surrounding a super-idyllic shady little pond. The water

isn’t really hot (that’s why they call it a warm well), so it feels refreshing, even in the heat of summer. The bottom is sandy and only a bit mucky, and the water is fairly clean. Some enterprising hippies put in a little bench and a floating coffee table made from the top of a Styrofoam cooler, so it’s a pretty sweet little spot to chill out for a few hours. A Mexican family was picnicking there when we arrived, but once they left I got naked and went for a little soak. Fuck, it was costing me $150 — might as well get my money’s worth!!!

After soaking a bit, we hiked back to my truck and the tow guy was there. He winched me out in about 2 minutes, and I tried to sweet talk him into giving me a discount — which he claimed he was already doing, since allegedly there’s normally a 2-hour minimum, and it would have been $300. Hmmm. Then he wanted a photo with me, which I obliged, afraid he’d charge me the extra hour if I said no!!

Anyhoo, we got out of there, swung by to dig up the drugs, and then got the fuck out of that godforsaken part of the country. I love the desert, but in the summertime there are places I’d rather be…ya know?? Like Deep Creek Hot Springs!! After stopping in Palm Desert for gas and supplies, we headed out to Apple Valley (where Deep Creek is), arriving just before the gate closed at 10pm. It was already dark, which sucked for our hike down, but what are ya gonna do?

Now, last time I was there (with my good buddy Jack Johnson), we camped up top at the trailhead, in the desert. This time, my sis and I wanted to camp at the bottom, on the beach by the springs. You’re not supposed to, but people do it all the time — as long as you’re quiet, and clean up after yourself, it shouldn’t be a problem. But, you do have to pack all your gear down that 1.5-mile trail…and then back up, which is a real bitch :/ Which is why so many assholes leave garbage and junk behind at the bottom — the amount of litter and old sleeping bags and stuff down there is unbelievable. Who are these irresponsible assholes?!!?! If I was rich, I’d hire a helicopter to take me down there for a massive cleanup.

Anyhoo, my sis and I somehow loaded up our tents, sleeping bags, booze and accessories, and hiked down in the darkness. This time there wasn’t much moonlight, but we had headlamps so it was ok. We got to the bottom, waded across the creek, and set up camp on the beach in the shade of some cottonwood trees, by the Arizona pool. Then we ate some pot cookie and soaked in the delicious, clean warm water late into the night. No weird bugs, no sulphur smell, no mucky bottom and no sand to get stuck in. That place DEFINITELY gets an A+ rating!

In the morning, we were up super early like kids on Christmas morning — my sis was so excited to see the majesty of Deep Creek in the daylight! I was afraid it would be really crowded on account of it being July 3rd, right near the holiday…but it was perfect. Just the right amount of people! Aside from the usual naked dudes, there were even a couple of hot young topless chicks who soaked with us and smoked us out, and there was also a guitarist and a fiddler who played some awesome acoustic jams that were perfect for napping to!

We spent a nice lazy day drowsing around, and then ate some mushrooms around sunset, and spent the evening soaking in the Womb pool with this Deep Creek veteran called the HotSpringsWizard who was super interesting to talk to. He had this magical little lantern, just big enough to hold a tealight candle, and it cast the most beautiful light on the rocks and the water, lending a real Tolkienesque ambiance. Fantastic!

The only unfantastic part was getting up early the next morning to hike out — we got up before 7am to try and escape the heat while hiking, but it was still a long, hot slog uphill, especially with the weight of all our gear on our backs. That’s the only downside to Deep Creek — that hike up is brutal!! But it does keep the half-assers away… so I guess it’s actually an upside, not a downside!

Anyway, we left camp before 10am on Friday, the 4th of July — plenty of time for me to go home, write my blog, lift weights and pack up for my journey to the west coast. I wanted to leave the very next day (Saturday), to avoid the holiday traffic on the I-15 on Sunday, when all the Southern Californians would be heading back from Vegas. But what I didn’t realize was, traffic on the 4th itself was miserable!!!! I figured all the Californians would have left for Vegas the night before, but I was wrong — by the time I got to Barstow it was horrendous. Stop and go, totally shitty. The problem with driving to Vegas is, there’s really one ONE way in and out from So Cal — I-15. It’s two lanes in each direction, but I’m here to tell you that ain’t enough…especially on holidays.

With all my backcountry experience, I figured that surely there had to be some other route — but I didn’t want to go too far out of the way. Alas, my only options were to sit in traffic — or go way the fuck out of the way. I chose the latter, taking the Newberry Springs exit south to the Bagdad Cafe, then catching the 40 up to the Mojave National Preserve, and cutting through that over to Searchlight, by way of Nipton. What should have been a 2-hour jaunt (from Barstow to Vegas) ended up taking over five hours!!! But hey — at least I was moving 🙂

Anyhoo, I got home late, and my Aunt Flo was giving me shit, but I still managed to get most of my stuff done in time to leave Vegas around 1pm the next day, Saturday. That’s how committed I am to fitness — even though it felt like my uterus was trying to force its way down my birth canal and plop out on the ground, I still made myself go through my whole weightlifting routine, cramps and all 🙂

I figured no one would be on the road in the middle of the holiday weekend — wrong again!!! That fuckin’ 15 is always a mess — especially because a huge, fabulously dramatic thunderstorm was moving through the Mojave! It was part of the same weather system that fucked up the Vegas Strip fireworks show the night before — which really delighted the hater in me. I find fireworks to be overrated and boring as fuck, so I thought it was super cool that a thunderstorm moved in and stole the show  — nature’s fury is way more exciting and fun to watch, in my opinion! I’m sure all the dumb ass alkie partiers on the Strip were bummed, but oh well — let me tell you, I couldn’t get out of that city fast enough. I was back in town for less than 24 hours, and that was too long for me. I’m all Vegas-ed out right now…it’s so hot and humid and full of dumbasses this time of year.

So anyway, this massive thunderstorm was dumping rain all over the Mojave, so it took longer than usual to get to Barstow, again. But once I turned off that fucking 15, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. I stopped off for dinner in Bakersfield with my friend Dr. Zhivago, who greeted me at the curb with a Campari & soda and filled me in on his latest WhatsYourPrice.com hijinks (spoiler: he broke down and bought that one whore her Louboutins), and then drove alllllll the way north to my mom’s house up in Sonoma County — a total of 12 hours!!! I was exhausted!!!

I rolled into my mom’s at 1am and basically just passed out. But when I woke up today, it was all worth it — she lives in a beautiful, rustic cabin in the middle of a cool, lush redwood forest just off the Russian River. In other words….the perfect spot to spend the summer! I brought enough stuff to stay til the end of the month, but who knows?? My original plan was to stay here, then do my Seattle road trip (I have several photo shoots booked up there in a couple weeks) and then head back down to Vegas, go to Sturgis, and then Burning Man. But Sturgis might not happen after all — it looks like the guy my girlfriend and I worked for at The Knuckle Saloon last year doesn’t want to hire us back (!!!??!?!?!), so I guess I have no need to be back in Vegas til Burning Man now!! Fuck!!

On a side note, I can’t believe that guy isn’t hiring us back — we worked our asses off for him last year, and sold quite a bit of booze for him! I guess he preferred to hire local heifers or something…oh, well. It was a fun one-time experience anyway, as I’m sure you’ll recall from reading my blog about it last summer 🙂 So anyhoo, as it stands now, I’m spending the summer in Northern California. My buddy Jack Johnson will also be touring the area, so we made plans to hit up some hot springs together next week, and I’m going to see a couple of his shows in San Francisco, so I can finally catch his act. I’ll be going to see him at some Italian restaurant called Osteria on Monday night, if anyone wants to meet for dinner…hit me up!

One thing I know for sure, I need to make some ca$h, and pronto — I spent almost $400 in gas in the past 12 days alone!!!! So if you’re a Bay Area-based photographer, and want to hire me for any projects any time between now and August 19th or so….holla at me!! Or if you need any copywriting or editing or other writing-type work, I can do that as well. I need adventure money….because in the words of Robert Earl Keen…

“The road goes on forever and the party never ends!”

🙂 🙂 🙂

P.S. for more photos from my Mexico trip, see my Facebook album!!