wish I was here
{favorite places}
the scenery's here, wish you were beautiful...
Victoria
Monterey Peninsula
Oregon Coast
Seattle
Las Vegas
San Francisco
Borders
Limey's
Monterrey
Target
Victoria, BC, Canada
I was 6 the first time I visited Victoria, BC, sparking years of Anglophilia to follow. It's this adorable little British town and everything in it is equally adorable (The Children's Garden) little (The Miniature Museum) and British (The Empress Hotel). The one dark spot in this first trip was our jaunt through the Royal London Wax Museum. Seemed harmless enough, but I took one look at the lifelike figures therein and started screaming bloody murder. Not even the Disney display could appease me, such was my terror. Thus, we finished the tour in record time (with me shreiking all the way), and I've never cared for wax figures since then, or large stuffed bears, or bodies in open caskets, for that matter. Just don't trust 'em to stay inanimate, I guess. (Returning to the list is far less frightening.)
Monterey Peninsula, CA
During my high school years in Iowa, I spent summers with my dad in Washington. Dad always planned vacation excursions for us, and he being a typical Pacific Northwesterner, they invariably involved camping. I'm far from outdoorsy, and nursing a case of jetlag with a brisk hike, followed by a sleepless night on hard cold ground, was never my cup of tea. I longed for a plush retreat with room service, or at the very least, a mattress. As another summer getaway loomed near, I wrote an impassioned letter to my father begging him to forgo the usual camping trip for a hoteled tour of the Monterrey Peninsula, which sounded like a magical place to me. It never occurred to me at the time that our next trip was going to coincide with Dad's honeymoon with his new wife, Susan. Luckily, my persuasiveness paid off, and everyone benefited from my selfishness, because this place WAS magical...gorgeous, relaxing, idyllic. I yearn to go back. (Much as you might yearn to go back to the list.)
Oregon Coast
Back in Portland, my parents knew a couple who had a beach house that they frequently invited us to use. This was my first exposure to the ocean, and a life-long love affair was born. Some people love the mountains, others favor the desert, or maybe rolling hills of green, but my heart belongs to the shore. I feel completely at peace just sitting and watching the waves. The Oregon Coast is a little more rugged, and certainly less sunny than the Monterrey Peninsula, but no less beautiful. (As beautiful as the list? Let's go back and see!)
Seattle, WA
There's almost nothing you can't do here, and everything is just so green and ecofriendly and hip. I have a few favorite spots: Tower Records, the University Book Store, Julia's Café in Wallingford, the Seattle Center, Nordstrom's, the Honey Bear Bakery. I have a lot of great memories of taking the bus to the U-District to shop for old Beatles records and eating Chocolate Decadence ice cream with my dad. Actually a lot of my happier memories -- particularly ones involving my father -- seem to revolve around food, which I'm sure has some deep significance, other than the obvious effects on my waistline. (The list has deep significance, too, and is totally fat-free.)
Las Vegas, NV
My one trip to Vegas was brief and completely unplanned. I was flying from Seattle to Des Moines en route to the current leg of my life, our plane got rerouted to Las Vegas, we missed our connecting flight, and it was several long hours in the airport before the airlines decided to put the passengers in a hotel for the night and on the first flight out the next morning. I was only 20 at the time and a ridiculously pious rule-follower so being surrounded by hundreds of slot machines (at the airport and the hotel) was lost on me. So why did Vegas make it to my Favorite Places list? Two reasons: as our rerouted plane approached the airport, the sight of Vegas at night, glittering beyond all imagining, was like a religious experience for me, and because when I was waiting for a taxi at the hotel, the desert plains provided an unobstructed view of one of the most breathtaking sunrises I have ever witnessed. Someday I'll go back to gamble and take in the nightlife, but I'd return just to reexperience those two wonders alone. (The wonder of the list is merely a click away.)
San Francisco, CA
The third time really was the charm with me and San Francisco. I recently traveled to Sacramento on business, and had a weekend to kill before I had to report to work. My first impulse, naturally, was to go to the beach. My second impulse was to avoid San Francisco. The 2 previous times I'd been to "The City" I just flat-out hated it, mainly because I wanted to be someplace else. Fast forward to the present, and all the hotels on the beach are booked up, all the websites I'm inspired by seem to written by San Franciscoans, I'm living in something of a shopping and cultural wasteland, and San Francisco is starting to look pretty good. Next thing I know I've booked a room at the Hotel Diva, spent a bundle on guidebooks, and logged countless hours of research, all for a trip that is going to last (minus travel time) little over a day. Did I ever mention I have a penchant for overkill? Anyway, I braved traffic and crowds and my own inability to stick to a schedule to emerge from the experience with a new appreciation for the place. It did my wacky, liberal, consumeristic soul a world of good. Now I'm thinking if I ever move back to the coast (and come into a big pile o' cash) I'll move here, even over my beloved Seattle, since I've already been there, done that, and have the umbrella to prove it. (You know where I'd like to move? Back to the list, that's where.)
and the local haunts...
Borders Books & Music
I can spend hours in this place, and frequently do. I should probably pay rent. Just being here is soothing. It feeds my magazine addiction, my book fetish, my music obsession, my "I miss the big city"-itis. I'd be lost in Des Moines without it. Barnes and Noble is here, too, but it just isn't the same. Borders is warmer, somehow. (But the list is red-hot!)
Limey's Pub
Haven't been there in months for reasons too soap operatic to share, and many of the reasons I was there in the first place have come and gone, but this place was a second dysfunctional home to me for over a year and provided a seemingly endless supply of romantic intrigue, so it deserves a mention. Maybe someday I'll be back, once the guilty are punished, my sins are vanquished, and I can't quell my craving for overpriced beer and bad pickup lines any other way. (Addictive, depraved...not unlike the list.)
Monterrey Mexican Restaurant
A few years ago a little Mexican restaurant opened in a strip mall near my then-job and my coworkers and I soon found it a lunchtime haven from our workday woes. Since then I've been dragging everyone I know in to enjoy the excellent food, lightning-fast service, and stealthly-strong margaritas, and business is booming. Personally I think I should get a turn of the profits for this, but I'll take another basket of tortilla chips instead. (And you know what would go great with that? The list!)
Target
Target probably somehow represents everything that is wrong with society today but so help me, I love the place. I shop there for damn near everything. Wal-Mart is almost as much of a way of life and would have made the list as well, but a recent trip reminded me of the stupifying phenomenon that occurs upon entering the place. The store I frequent is in one of the tonier parts of town, and yet people walk in and immediately become slow-moving, inconsiderate morons who will stand purposely blocking the aisles for no apparent reason while you patiently wait for them to move their fat asses out of the way. I don't even want to talk about what happens at check-out. I personally suspect that some sort of brain-wave depletor installed at the entrance is to blame, ole Sam's way of equilizing his clientele to the lowest common denominator so no one feels outclassed. That, or I may have simply watched one too many episodes of The X-Files. (Experience similar effects by returning to the list.)