Seattle
Before we could actually travel we needed to know our pup Milo would be OK with our absence. We adopted him days before the badness of It descended so he’s not known life without us in the room near 24/7. He’d even fooled us into taking turns grocery shopping as he led us to believe he’d be deeply traumatized. Turns out that was (and remains) 100% drama.
Before taking any lengthy trips we booked a room at Seattle’s landmark Edgewater Hotel. We’d never stayed there, before, and wanted to do something special given years absence from the travel scene. The room wasn’t noteworthy from a design perspective; think NW ski lodge, an altogether familiar look for this region. But the balcony view along with the service was amazing. Best of all, Milo survived and we had a green light to go on to bigger and better trips.
London
Once upon a time we were fortunate enough to visit London every Christmas. Then came It, the thing whose name I will not commit to pixels for I do not wish to give it even the slightest of graces. We all know It; It made us wear masks, retreat from our friends and family, and It made us call whatever four walls we lived in our entire worlds. I hate It.
2022 dawned with It in retreat; travel was kinda possible once more. It still made us do its bidding: we wore masks on an international flight (and cringed at those in the cabin who – even though they were coughing – did not). It made us take tests to get back home (twice, in fact, because It did not communicate well with government officials guiding requirements). And, because It has us in thrall for over two years, we were genuinely overwhelmed to be around so many people. Especially concerts. So many people, such small spaces.
And London gave no fucks with regards to It. London was living life, looming death be damned. Few masks, everyone pressed up close so no social distancing. I could almost admire their utter lack of interest in appeasing It. Almost. It was not to be trifled with and London was drafting everyone into a high stakes game. Never bet agains It. We kept the masks on.
The plan was to split our two weeks between an AirBnB and a hotel. We’d picked a dramatic flat near Victoria Station for our faux residence. Despite careful planning and many redundant confirmations, the flat was unceremoniously yanked out from under us the day we arrived. Tina and I sat in a small park off Grosvernor Gardens painfully texting back and forth with the host who I suspect (without evidence) of baiting-and-switching us. After a couple of hours we cut our losses and booked a room at the ME London (a prior favorite).
This turned out to be a much better plan; our room perched above the Strand with a grand view of Somerset House and the Thames. The moon, which followed us the entire trip, shone brightly every crisp and clear London night. We even happened to bump into my nephew, Devin, and his family. The ME might be a bit Vegas but it’s ideally located next to Soho and a short walk across the Waterloo bridge to the National Theatre and Haywood Gallery. We even struck up a nice conversation one evening with a neighbor, barely peeking over the divider between our two balconies.
Our location was especially perfect for this trip: we saw Goldfrapp at the Royal Festival Hall in the National Theatre campus and a terrific Louise Bourgeois retrospective at the Hayward. Musically we got to see two shows at our beloved Roundhouse in Camden: Sparks and Everything Everything. The Tate Modern had a terrific exhibition on surrealism, featuring artists from around the world – including Tina’s treasure Remedios Varo.
We kept to plan for the second half and, while we loved the ME, we moved over to the Sea Containers to finish the trip. We’d stayed here, before, and loved it. This time was no different: a riverside balcony overlooking St Paul’s Cathedral and Blackfriars Bridge. The gentle waves of the Thames were astonishingly relaxing, given we were in the heart of London. And the room, well, that was something. A large bathroom and a bonus powder room, plenty of closet space, and a sumptuous bed. It was a splurge but, hey, it’s been a few years.
Beyond music and museums, we can’t go to London without seeing theatre. We saw a great production of Neil Gaiman’s Ocean at the End of the Lane. Stagecraft set the spooky tone and the performances were powerful and completely enrapturing. There’s talk of a stop-motion animated version of this story, directed by Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline). Hope that comes to pass.
A friend tipped us off to a production of Cabaret – which neither of us had seen before. This production starred Fra Fee as the Emcee and Amy Lennox as Sally Bowles. The performances were inspired, as was the special-built theatre that tossed out old ideas of rows and aisles, instead seating patrons in the cabaret itself. Tina and I had a little two-person cocktail table all to ourselves, amidst many more situated in like arrangements. This design added immeasurably to an already compelling play.
To round things out we caught an actual cabaret performance at Cahoots, saw some Fantastic Beasts at Electric Cinema, and all our favorite restaurants (more on that here). We brought Renate with us, visiting both Hyde Park and St. Pauls in remembrance. Despite a last-minute kerfuffle around testing, we got the all clear and returned home to a very happy boi.
Los Angeles
LA is just a short hop away, so easy that we chose to go their twice in 2022: once for a long-delayed Supergrass concert, and a second time to see St. Vincent and Roxy Music perform at the Forum. Best of all we got a chance to visit with dear friends who live in the LA area. The gently remodeled but still beautiful (and occasionally loud) Mondrian was our home for both visits.
Los Angeles isn’t short of great restaurants (detailed here) so culinary adventures are always a must. We also took a day to tour what is kind of a museum row around the Miracle Mile. We visited LACMA, the Academy Museum of Motion Picture Arts, and the Petersen Automotive Museum – all in one day! LACMA was hosting a partially departed McQueen fashion exhibit, along with their terrific permanent collection. The Academy Museum – which I had long dismissed – had way more to offer than I had imagined: a spectacular rooftop view of West Hollywood, a mesmerizing retrospective of Black cinema, and the actual studio backdrop from North By Northwest. Even the car museum had an exhibit showcasing Andy Warhol’s last commission for Mercedes-Benz (along with an actual Tucker!).
Other museum visits included the Getty Villa - a gorgeous Italian-style palace perched over the Pacific Coast Highway. We naturally visited our DTLA go-to,The Broad, and the neighboring Museum of Contemporary Art.
We visited the Paramount backlot which taught me another lesson about assuming the worst about certain attractions. The tour was informative, winding through the production facilities led by docents who (while clearly scripted) knew a lot about movies. It was a lot of fun to visit sets used by familiar productions like the reusable NYC lot home to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and countless other series and commercials. I was particularly thrilled to drop by studios used to film Rear Window and pre-2K Star Trek.
LA being LA we drove around a lot, from the Malibu to Baldwin Hills and Mullholand Drive, we got around. Driving from the valley through the Santa Monica mountains to the Pacific Coast Highway was particularly glorious. We even took a coast trip all the way down to the port at Long Beach, which is a marvel of scope and industry.
We rounded things out with some shopping (Amoeba Records) and a couple of movies (Doctor Strange, Don’t Worry Darling) at our go-to LA theatre near Westwood (iPic). Even with all this, we can’t wait to go back.
Las Vegas
Tina had always wanted to drive from LA to Las Vegas so, even though I didn’t recall it being that interesting, we decided to do that on our Roxy trip. We carefully mapped out what looked to be an interesting seven hour desert crossing and set off after a lovely lunch with great friends Gavin and Elaine.
To say the trip was interesting would be an understatement. After clearing some horrific traffic to get out of LA, our first visit was to Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, a little outsider-art landmark just west of Barstow. Then we kept on going east, cutting up through the Mohave National Preserve. I timed it just so we’d hit the preserve at sunset, casting beautiful shadows against the red-and-white rock. The weather was on our side making the entire road trip a one-of-a-kind. And we hit the timing perfectly, rolling into Vegas just in time for our dinner reservation (more on our Vegas food adventures here).
Aside from the expected great cuisine, Vegas offered a lot more in terms of off-the-strip entertainment this time. We drove around a bit, of course, touring the public murals around Fremont Street and driving through the natural wonder of the Red Rock Canyon park. We wandered the kitschy, off-beat galleries of the emerging Arts District. We finally got around to visiting the oft-complimented Mob Museum, complete with a moonshine history tour (booze included). The Atomic Testing Museum – run by the Smithsonian – was a somber but still entertaining walk through the early days of nuclear weaponry.
Best of all, however, would be Omega Mart. Run by art collective MeowWolf, the Omega Mart is situated inside a larger interactive installation called Area15 (which, while cool, we did not see much of). Omega Mart is a huge, immersive trip through an insane grocery store fronting an otherworldly dimension. From bizarre products, sentient and mobile root vegetables, and a soundtrack by Brian Eno, it’s impossible to put into words how fun and how weird Omega Mart really is. I’ve included some pictures but, honestly, it’s just something that needs to be experienced.
Across the street from Area15 is the Illuminarium, host to more immersive installations. Unlike Omega Mart, Illuminarium exhibits feel quite real. Tina and I took the Space experience, which was a bunch of interactive projections of the moon, nebulae, and space in a vast white room. The projections covered everything – floor, ceiling, and walls. The projections weren’t static. For example, when “on the moon”, the visuals were capable of tracking your foot and simulating a footstep on the moon – truly amazing.
Of course, Vegas being Vegas, we did hit up a proper spectacle: Ru Paul’s Drag Race. We nabbed some seats up front and were treated to a spectacular drag show featuring competitors from the actual show. While the Flamingo reserved the honor of being the only hotel I’ve seen someone wheeled out on a gurney, the theatre was quite nice. My advice: get their quick and don’t linger in the lobby.
San Francisco
In 2021 I switched from one work group to another: same company, new team. Since that switch I had only ever seen my new co-workers through a computer screen. I hadn’t even gone in to the office, despite having traveled to both London and Los Angeles in early 2022. In June, however, I had the opportunity to meet folks face-to-face by flying to SFO for a work offsite. Since it was an overnighter, Tina did not join me. Even so, it was a good time and nice to meet co-workers in person while visiting an old favorite city.
Portland
Even though we’d travelled quite a bit in 2022, we just had to check in on our second city to the south, Portland. Many of our favorite restaurants had to shut down because of It, but some remained. Beyond a short restaurant tour, we returned to Portland to see a favorite band and visit with my cousin (whom I had not seen for years).
Due to some car problems at home we decided to try out these electric cars everyone is talking about. We rented a Polestar 2 via Turo for the trip and found it all quite enjoyable. The car had plenty of get-up-and-go, took very little time to recharge, and handled reasonably well. It had a fair bit of road noise; nothing ear-shattering but definitely noticeable. It was a fun experiment and made clear how economical an electric car can be (cost less than half to drive down and back when compared to a gas-powered engine).
We only stayed a couple of nights but it was a grand trip and we got a chance to check in on one of our favorite cities. Thankfully the retail scene seems to have survived. Pet destination Hip Hound is still in operation, along with most businesses on busy 23rd Ave. The Hawthorne district seemed relatively unchanged, as did the Pearl. We’re going to try and get back in 2023 for a closer look and a longer stay – but it’ll likely be at our favoritist hotel, The Nines, still wonderful after all these years.