Tahoe is Happiness

Hey, guess what? I'm in New York! I finally made it after dealing with my heavy suitcases, very lost taxi driver, and in-plane starvation. I mean, I hate airplane food but at least they could give us peanuts!

Before leaving California, I went on a little two day adventure up to Lake Tahoe. I've been to a lot of places in my life, but I have to say, Tahoe wins the award for my favorite place in the world. Its beauty always puts me in a good mood, and I have so many happy memories from my time up there. I love it during all its seasons, but winter is the best. It is less touristy, majestic, and filled with skiers! By my excitement you may have guessed that I luuurve skiing. It is one of the few sports I can actually attempt. I have horrific hand-eye coordination which makes any sports that involve throwing a ball around fairly impossible for me.

Tahoe in the summer is lovely as well, especially because it means hikes in the Desolation Wilderness! I've been on a few backpacking trips in Desolation, but since we only had two days we decided to do a short hike out to Eagle Lake. Can you believe something this beautiful is only 1.5 miles away from the road?

Our weekend was also filled with insane feasts of vegetables, PEZ, weird beer drinking (my friend became mesmerized by a beer called 'eye of the hawk' and accidentally purchased it) and a car ride back of awesomely bad 90's music. Who remembers 'No Scrubs', 'Wannabe', 'Summer Girls', 'Barbie Girl', and 'C'est La Vie'?

Tell me about your favorite place.

Oh, and is anyone going to be in NYC for fashion week? I'd love to meet you!

Farewell to Maude

Here it is: the sign that the road trip is officially over. We sold Maude the Mercedes yesterday, and I had to take some pictures with her to say goodbye. It was a little sad, she was the third lady on our road trip, and source of endless fun. She is most definitely the best car I've ever had and I'll miss her fancy features. Normally I would be a good blogger and black out the license plate, but she has a brand new one now so I don't need to worry about that.









Loafers: Thrifted, Skirt: Thrifted, Lion Belt: Vintage, Shirt: H&M

I kind of like how over exposed these ones are, it gives you an idea of how sweltering the sun was (at 6:00 at night...New Jersey, what is your deal?).





And what would a farewell be without the requisite side view mirror pic?



I bought this skirt at a Goodwill in New Jersey, and I'm having a little quandary about it. The best bit of the skirt is the bottom, which has large peacocks printed all the way around it. However, the skirt is mid calf length, and I don't really think I'm ballsy enough to embrace that style, especially since all it makes me think of is the outfits my mother and all of her friends used to wear in the mid 90s...they were big fans of Laura Ashley. And mom jeans. But that's another story. Perhaps I should just embrace my inner 90s, because according to the New York Times the Elaine Benes style is back, and let's face it, I do love Seinfeld. Anyway, I pinned up the skirt because I love it short, but I couldn't bring myself to cut off the bottom. Any ideas?

I am back in California, after some slightly rash decision making (aka I decided on Thursday I wanted to go home and was back at 9am on Friday morning; thank you air miles!) I have arrived safe and sound and ready to eat delicious farmer's market food, hang out in some weather that is far from the obscenely hot NYC heat, and see my friends and family.

What is your favorite part of visiting home?

Music Monday - The Wassaic Project

This is a fairly massive post, but I just can't help it because The Wassaic Project was too awesome for words.

Wassaic is a beautiful litte town in New York, and the festival is run once a year by The Wassaic Project, an artist community that is based out of Luther Barn and Maxon Mills, which are beautiful unused farm buildings. This festival was nothing like the other ones I've been to recently; it is very small (I guessed that there were maybe 1,000 people there throughout the weekend, but at each performance there were between 50-200 people) and therefore had a great sense of community. I loved recognizing people as they moved from gallery to stage to campfire, and it was wonderful having all of the artists in our midst.

I went with my friend Peter and we had a great time trying to point out our favorite "urban woodsman" specimen. Has anyone heard about this? Apparently it's a new sub-classification of hipster. I think it's hilarious! Plus, I guess I secretly have a soft spot for urban woodsmen because I once dated a guy who my friends called "the arrogant lumberjack" because of his love for flannel, his beard, and complicated sentence structure.

Maxon Mills is probably one of the most excellent arts spaces I have ever been in. Because it is an old mill it is incredibly tall, so we ended up climbing dizzying amounts of stairs, but I think because of that we all got to know each other a little bit better...I mean, what's more of an ice breaker than rubbing up against someone in a tiny staircase? Most of the rooms that came off the stairs had tons of windows, and the soft natural light was a beautiful addition to the surreal feeling the art installations created.

I loved every bit of what we saw, but these were my three favorites:

Jonathan Bogarin, "Was it Evening or Afternoon"

Ben Cuevas, "Transcending the Material"

Henry Klimowicz's amazing cardboard installation was in the highest level of the mill, and it was like being in some kind of martian fairy cardboard cocoon. I wanted to stay there for hours.

During the day the music was on the Maxon Mills porch, and there was poetry in between sets. The poetry was a wonderful idea, because there is nothing worse than waiting through setups and sound checks for ages. Of the daytime sets Hannah Cohen's beachy vocals and Sebastian Blanck's amazing guitar skills were the standouts.

In the evening the party moved up to the Luther Barn, where the stage was set up at the bottom of a hill, complete with whimsical lights and the beautiful tiled roof of the barn as a backdrop.

Spirit Family Reunion started off with a sweet folk performance, and She Keep Bees followed with some hilarious moments and Jessica Larrabee's wailing siren of a voice. My personal favorite of the night were Pearl and the Beard. Each of them is such a strong vocalist, and their raging harmonies and the addition of a kazoo and various other interesting percussion instruments to their trio of guitar, drums, and cello made every song more exciting than the last. I swear, the cellist must have to replace her bow after every performance, she has so much energy!

What really made this festival wonderful was the free pancake breakfast on Sunday morning. I mean really, what more could you want?

My favorite questions from the weekend:

What kind of fairy are you?

and

How did you manage to Beadazzle your face?

Flower Headband: Homemade, Dress: Thrifted, Sandals: Gap

I finally put up a followers button and got a twitter. I feel like I have officially inaugurated myself into the blogosphere!

Also...I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get rid of underlines on links. Anyone know?

The Last of the Epic Road Trip

Well...this is the last post of the epic road trip. I'm pretty sad it's over. We are selling Maude the Mercedes this week. It's going to be a sad day...she was like the third lady on our road trip!

This last set of pictures is from Michigan. Elise and I met up with the lovely Andrea of Blonde Bedhead in Lansing. She took us to a fun breakfast place, Mama Bear’s which we loved because of the local food and delicious pancakes. She told us to check out the university which was great advice. We had fun running through the wooded campus and even went in to the library and looked up old dissertations from the 60s. Ok...I admit it, I'm a huge library dork. I guess that's what you get from being a total bookaholic. (Which sounds way more badass than bookworm, obviously.)

I bought this outfit at the Urban Outfitters in Toronto after having the overwhelming urge to burn my tiny amount of clothes that I brought with me because I have worn the same thing Every. Single. Day.

After Lansing we went for a swim in beautiful Lake Michigan and checked out the town of Three Oaks, which was having a small music festival. I found a rare copy of Diane di Prima's Kerhonkson Journal at a bookstore there and nearly died with happiness. The town is very progressive and I found the contrast between the richly decorated storefronts and the decaying buildings striking. Elise got a bit sick of me taking pictures of all of the ivy and brick that we passed!

Elise was really excited about the piggy meat inside the butcher.

I was more excited about the piggies outside.

We had some amazing flatbread pizza from a travelling brick oven.

One of the aforementioned ivy shots.

P.S...We Went to Niagara Falls

Well what can I say about Niagara Falls? It was a bit of an experience seeing a mind blowing work of nature in such a ridiculously touristy setting. I just watched the falls for ages trying to imagine there weren't so many people around me. Seeing The Maid of the Mist trucking back and forth to the falls with its cargo of blue poncho clad tourists was pretty sweet too.

Well Hello, Canada

Canada is oh so lovely in the summer! We road tripped up, survived customs ok, and stayed with my lovely friend Jacqueline in Montreal. The old part of Montreal is so pretty, with cobblestone streets, tiny art filled alleyways, and of course, it is right on the water. After Montreal we headed over to Toronto to stay with my cousin. We explored Kensington Market and the arts district, and had an amazing day at Toronto islands. On the way back into the states we had to deal with the most horrible customs lady. We kept our biggest secret quiet...we had a 3 foot long zucchini from my cousin's garden in the trunk!

Our trip is over in one week, but I think I've decided where I'm going to settle for the next year or so. I have been making tentative plans so I'll let you all know at the end of the week. I am so excited to get settled again (and especially have all my clothes and cookbooks back!) Now...picture overload!

After that my camera ran out of battery, which you are probably glad about because I did not take nearly as many pictures as I took in Toronto. Gird your loins!

Free Shop!

This poor peacock had had a lot of his tail feathers stolen.

Family

Whew! You made it to the end!