Living in San Francisco. I can explore and explore and explore and never run out of places to see or grub to eat or coffee to drink or people to meet or things to do. Still though, from time to time I really miss the road. Driving 8 hours through bumfuck nowhere, blasting mix-CDs with the windows down, with no clue what is really in store in the next city or state you encounter. Those were nice times.

Great short-term solution = weekend road trip!

My adventure cohorts, Dakota and Tara, and I had a loosely assembled agenda: go see David Bazan in some random city that starts with a V, then continue driving southward to Hermosa Beach to stay with Dakota’s friend Brian.

That’s about it. So we packed ourselves into a rental car and headed southward.

First stop: Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Dakota and Tara wanted to ride rollercoasters and eat ice cream.

I happened to be battling one of the more intense hangovers of my lifetime, so I wasn’t particularly interested in either. I bought a hot dog (it’s what my hangover wanted at the time), took a seat at the sidelines and silently observed the chaos.

We wandered around for a bit, snapped some shots on the beach, & prepared to head on our way.

We arrived in the small city that starts with a V by nightfall. The venue was a lovely place. A lovely empty place. We were wondering if we were going to be the only ones here.

Sure enough, it filled out, but we easily weasled our way to the very front to watch David Bazan, one of my favorite songwriters of all time, serenade us from three feet away. One of the better moments of my life.

Being in the front row with a fixed 85 mm lens, I could basically take photos that framed his forehead only. I could have backed a few feet up into the crowd to get some better shots. It was definitely one of those moments where you decide whether you would rather have the better experience or a better documentation of your experience. For once, I chose the former.

So then we drove to Hermosa Beach. It was another 4 hours or so to drive. It was also midnight. But we wanted to do it anyway. So off we went.

We arrived in Hermosa at approx. 4 am. We tried to contact our host, as he told us to call him when we arrived. No response. Dakota proposes we sleep in the car.

Nope. Didn’t come all the way to SoCal to sleep in a damn car. So we decide to go find the apartment he described for us. We find said apartment. We knock. No answer. So… we try the door. It is open. We sneak inside.

We are not entirely certain that this is the right apartment. We could possibly be breaking into a strangers home. We check a utility bill on the counter. Not in her friend’s name. Fantastic.

The bedroom doors are open. Dakota peers in bedroom one to see if her friend happens to be sleeping in it. Definitely not her friend. Even better. I convince the girls to hold on and at least let me charge my phone before we have to run away.

Fortunately, in the second bedroom we found our friend Brian. I had already set up my bedpallate on the floor. I didn’t care whose apartment we had invaded, I was going to sleep in it.

And so we did.

We all woke up late. Brian conveniently lives a block from the ocean, so we took a quick walk down the beach, ate some brunch, then headed back to prepare for our trek home.

Only a quick 9-hour trek home. This may be a chore to some, but I absolutely love the road, so I was elated. Not to mention… we’re driving up the coast of California. There could be worse ways to spend your day.

Hooray roadtrips!

Wow, ok. I’m finally getting caught up on blogs after my longest dry spell yet.

One month and three days. That’s fairly large fraction of the blog’s entire lifespan. I used to freak out if I hadn’t posted in 36 hours. I also used to have slightly more free time.

Anyway, enough about that. I’m blogging again! Hooray!

A few highlights from the past month in Cali:

I officially began work for Porto Franco Records, full time. I still am having a hard time believing that I’m getting a steady salary to do what I love.

I’m particularly happy to be working with this label for a number of reasons. For one, I have a good bit of creative responsibility in my job, which means I have a good bit of creative freedom. Second, the label has a good taste in music. The owners are Russian, and you can hear their tastes translated in their decision to host an eclectic catalog of artists, ranging from indie, folk, americana, blues, jazz, balkan… all with the common characteristic of artistic integrity and stellar musicianship. Third, the label is open minded to not only adapting to the changing industry, but adopting innovative business and marketing models in the interest of finding a long-term solution to the issues in traditional record industry. I spend every waking moment studying the industry and evolving technology, and they want to work with me to find ways to use these new innovations to our advantage. DREAMY!

I’m working on a number of projects for them, but my main focus for the next few months is in the realm of branding, online presence and content overhaul, among developing some really neat projects both online and within the Bay Area. We’re aiming to have the new website up by February, which is exciting. In the meantime, you can check out the existing one here.

Follow us on Twitter, too! We just redid our account: twitter.com/PFRecords.

Also – I’m not going back to grad school (I’ve been in school for an MFA in photography). It was pretty difficult balancing full-time grad work + full-time job + all of my own projects (hence the blog hiatus), and I ended up half-assing pretty much all of my endeavors in the effort to keep all of them in my life. That said, I need to simplify things a bit and hone-in my concentration toward the most relevant projects – work, blog, photos.

Note that I still include photos as a relevant project, as I am still obsessed with photography and I have a blog that runs off of photos. I just can’t afford to build up my debt going through a grad program that I can’t put 100% into, because that would defeat the purpose of going to grad school. And… I have a job that I love. Also a purpose of going to grad school. Achieved.

Anyway. More fun stuff – I attended SF Music Tech in early December. It was, as the name implies, a conference where those involved in the tech and music industries can get together to discuss current issues and ideally brainstorm innovative ideas and solutions. I will say that the discussion of (and/or griping about) current issues largely outweighed the brainstorming of solutions, but it is certainly hard to steer a conversation toward resolution in panels that have a 30-minutes cap, so it’s understandable. There were a number of great startups present that shared new apps that answer to the evolving needs of the industry, including a new facebook music app by my friends at Involver. I met a number of great people both during and after the conference, and am looking forward to attending again. Ideally I’d like to soon get involved with the planning of the conference… with just a little more structure and direction in the panel sessions, there is a huge amount of potential for this to become an extremely productive, content-rich event with a huge amount of utility.

Also in recent news:

- My friend Brandom moved to California, and has been living with me while he’s looking for a place to live. He was a friend of mine from Raleigh days, and I frequently come home to find him and other-Raleigh-now-in-SF-friend Dakota in my room, usually playing cards on my bed. It’s really great. I hope they continue doing this after Brandom finally finds a place.

- My roommates Hoa and Cyndie both had birthdays recently, but Cyndie was kind enough to have her birthday party before I left for NC for the holidays. It was a bacon-and-bourbon themed party, and, in typical Helena fashion, I ate so much bacon that I ended up in bed sick after only drinking half a glass of bourbon. Priorities.

- Brandom and I went out to eat my last meal in California before flying back to NC. We walked to a Japanese restaurant down the street, where I ordered a big bowl of rice with an eel filet on top. Next thing you know, I have swallowed an eel bone. It is stuck in my throat. I can feel it. It is piercing my tongue every time I swallow. I panic. Run to bathroom. Attempt to find bone. No luck. I sit on floor and prepare to faint. Also no luck. I finally reach down my throat and find the bone sticking out of my tonsil. In my attempt to get it out, I accidentally push it all. the way. into my tonsil. GROSSEST INJURY EVER. PS – It never came out and remains inside my tonsil, where it will eventually dissolve. Also gross.

Ok. Now time for pictures! Some randoms from my last weeks in Cali.

Ok. That’s all for now. More updates to come!

END!

After a particularly long drive, thanks to my accidental detour through some random southern California cities, we arrive in San Francisco. At 5:30 AM…. most awkward arrival time yet, especially when I have to wake my new roommate up in my new San Francisco house, neither of which I have seen or met, to move my stuff in. She was awesome though, especially considering the strange timing.

I now live in San Francisco. Holy mother of god.

Adjusting to your completely new hometown isn’t so bad when you are surrounded by former-hometown-folk to keep you occupied. Tim is here for another week or so, and my friend Brandom happened to fly in on the same night we arrived.

So began adventures with Brandom.

We started things off at Boogaloos, who I have already deemed my favorite brunch in San Francisco. Not that I have come remotely close to trying 10% of the brunch spots in San Francisco, but I AM obsessed with Mexican food and eggs in combination right now and they do a damn good job at providing me with it. We split a temple-o-spuds and a polenta + eggs plate. The day is a win already.

I decide that it will be best to drive Brandom to all of my favorite places in San Francisco, as I am not adjusted to the walkability of the city yet (aka I am lazy) and I figure that if I keep the car moving, I will reduce the number of parking tickets I’ll inevitably acquire. So… first stop: Twin Peaks.

Twin Peaks is the biggest hill in SF. You can see everything. You just have to make sure it’s a clear day, because 80% of the time it’s foggy and you can’t see two feet in front of you. Today we can see!

I wanted to take a jumping photo but it was so windy we thought we may die just standing up. So we took some normal photos and went on our way.

Next stop: Crissy Fields. Fun park and beach with a nice view of the Golden Gate. I’ve taken many a photo here before, so it’s fun to see how they end up changing every time I come back.

I wanted to drive Brandom around the west side of the Peninsula, where the road lines the hills and you see nothing but water below you, but we got lost and ended up at the Harold & Maude graveyard. This happens to be one of if not Brandom’s very favorite movie, so he freaked out and demanded we go in and take photos. And so we did.

By this time, the day had passed and we were tired. And so ended adventure day with Brandom.

Fast forward.

With Brandom and Tim both leaving the next day, I decided it was necessary to take everyone to Land’s End.

Land’s End is this somewhat secret location that a lot of SF folk seem to know of, but have no idea how to find. And somehow I managed to find it last year, by following really vague directions given to me by my SF veteran compadre Nick.

Basically, you take several disjointed bus rides to the Legion of Honor parking lot, wander through a golf course directly behind the property, hope you take the right path until you see another path going into the woods blocked off by a gate, walk around the gate, continue until you see a staircase, walk down the staircase until you reach a dirt path, walk up the dirt path until you can’t walk anymore, because you are standing on the edge of a cliff where the ocean meets the bay.

So me, Tim, Dakota, Brandom and Lewis found the cliffs once again. It was pretty foggy and overcast, which at first we thought would be a huge visibility problem, but it ended up being quite cool actually. The fog rested on top of the hills and actually rested on top of the Golden Gate, leaving a clear hole underneath it that you could see through. Brandom described it as a hole out of purgatory. If purgatory were an awesome oceanfront array of cliffs and giant rocks and waves.

I said my byes to Brandom, then went out for one last night of welldonetour-dom with Tim and company. My fellow road warrior is off to Raleigh tomorrow. Our 2009 phototour adventure has come to an end.

I would have some sort of profound synopsis for you here, but I really haven’t had any time to process all of the ridiculous incredible things that have happened to my life in the past six weeks. Maybe I’ll have have my brain reassembled by then.

All I can say now, is that tour made me grow in so many ways, as a PR professional, as a photographer, as a planner and a thinker and a friend and a person. I don’t think I’ll have a grasp on the amount I’ve learned through this for quite a while, but know for sure that I am definitely a different, better person leaving this tour. I got to spend my summer with some of the most wonderful people I’ve met in years. I love Bowerbirds and Megafaun and Tim and Sarah oh so dearly and can’t wait to see them again, and I’m going to stop typing now before I get emotional in the middle of this coffee shop.

END!

After what could possibly be the best tour weekend ever, we reluctantly say goodbye to Shaun & Margaret and depart for our next destination – San Francisco. I was particularly excited about this stop, as this is where I will be living for the next three years. It’ll be nice to catch a show in my new hometown.

As many of our drives do, we had some choices as to what route to take. We could take the scenic 101 down the coast (Shaun demanded we do this at least for the Oregon stretch), or the more efficient HWY 5 route. Having slept in a bit too late, as per usual, we were logically forced to choose route 5. It was a 9-hour vs. 13-hour decision, and we had to get into town by the time that Bowerbirds + Megafaun took the stage at Cafe du Nord. We were barely going to make it.

Well, what do you know. More traffic. That + my fairly poor ability to take proper exits turned our proposed 9-hour drive into a 12-hour drive after all. Needless to say, we missed the show. Fantastic.

We did make it in time to have a beer with my dear friend Dakota, who was housing us for the night. As I’ve said in previous posts, after any drive longer than 10 hours, no matter how tired you are, all you want to do is go out, have a beer, and do something social, as you have spent your entire day sitting in the same car seat looking at the same highway. So we stopped by 500 Club, had a beer or two, then headed back to Dakota’s to crash.

The next couple of days were a swift kick in the hind for me. As previously stated, this tour was also a process of moving me and my life to San Francisco. Upon arrival to the city, I realized that I had spent so much time focused on tour that I had put several important projects on the backburner, such as finding somewhere to live, or finding a job. Both quite important.

So I took a small hiatus to hide out and figure out my new San Fran life, while Tim went off and explored the city and caught up with friends.

Things that make San Fran different from North Carolina:
- It’s colder here. Like, way colder. Between 60 and 75 most of the time. I had already discovered this last summer, but while packing for tour, I had only included clothes that were appropriate for summertime in the rest of the country. Basically, I have a few long-sleeved shirts to rotate until the rest of my “winter” clothes are shipped over. I also have no jacket. However, I am very excited about finally being able to wear boots and scarves every day of the year.
- You can be a foodie for cheap. Local/organic seems to be the baseline for food standards here, when in NC, it seems to be the exception. I have also recently realized that I have an obsession with eggs and Mexican food eaten in combination. Cannot-function-without-it obsessed. I blame Boogaloos.
- Beautiful hills, cliffs, ocean sunsets, blah blah beautiful scenery blah gorgeous awesome stuff to climb and look at etc. You can expect plenty of photos of all of this in the next three years (the time that I will be living here).
- You can’t have a car in this damn city. You just can’t. Unless you have a garage and you never ever let your car out of it.

It did not take long for me to become intimately acquainted with San Francisco parking law enforcement.

I was sitting at Dakota’s, bumming her wireless internet while she was at work. I hear a bit of streetside commotion directly outside her living window. I pay it no mind. However, after a few minutes, I become curious. It seems to be coming from exactly where I parked my car. I casually glance out the window.

There’s my car. A tow truck has attached itself to it.

Panic. I run outside. Tow man is trying to break into my car door. I vomit apologies and frantic pleas to let my car go. He ignores me.

I notice a road cop not car from me, viewing the situation musingly. I run up to him.

“I AM SO SORRY I AM NOT FROM HERE I DIDNT KNOW CAN I PLEASE HAVE MY CAR BACK I HAVE MY KEYS I CAN TAKE IT RIGHT NOW”
“You have your keys on you? Right now?”
“YES THEY ARE RIGHT INSIDE THE DOOR”
“If you go inside and get your keys, and get back out here before he breaks into your car, you can have your car back.”
(I run inside and grab keys)

By the time I get back out, I see the road cop talking to the tow guy, ideally about how he should let my car go. I take no chances. I jump in my car, still fully attached to the tow truck. I roll the window down and continue to plea from within my vehicle.

Apparently this worked. The tow guy slowly and reluctantly unhooked all of the intricacies lacing our vehicles together, and went on his way, leaving me in my car, still hyperventilating, still in a state of severe but reducing panic. I park it a block away and head back to Dakota’s with my brand new $73 parking ticket (another distinct difference between San Fran and NC… give me a $12 Raleigh ticket any day).

Fast forward to lunch a couple of days later. Tim and I are faced with a big decision: end tour here? or continue on to Arizona?

We had planned for San Francisco to be the last stop of tour. But, seeing as we missed the show, we were feeling like there needed to be some better sort of closure for this tour. We also knew that Megafaun wanted us to come down to do some more projects with them. We also knew we had places to stay and lots of fun things to do. I also liked the idea of not having to park in San Francisco for a while.

So we discuss the pros and cons over this at lunch, and by the time we pay, we have made a decision. We are going to Arizona. Why the heck not. We pack our things and are on the road a few minutes later. 11 hours til Phoenix!

More stories + photos at our official tour blog: www.welldonetour.com.