lake tahoe volkswagen roadtrip: memorial day weekend, 2017.

this is lake tahoe.

ain't she a beaut!!?!?!?

^^^ one night during our road trip we stayed at this cute airbnb on the north end of lake tahoe! it was like a treehouse/lakehouse wonderland. not really a treehouse, but felt like one. it had SO much character and the big porch and view were just amaHzing.

our trip started out cruising through oregon where we stopped at caldera brewing in ashland. 

^^^this photo is the lay of the land around the brewery. loved it.

and their food & beer is delicious!! i definitely recommend stopping there if you're passing through southern oregon.

^ waitress gal said my salad might fly away because it gets really windy out there. lol.

helloooooo mt. shasta!

driving by shasta is so cool...its just RIGHT there.

^ random photos from a place we had breakfast burritos & beermosas, and then sierra nevada brewing company for our second visit. we also stopped here headed home during our road trip down highway 101 a couple years ago.

camping at oroville lake, california. those are "floating campsites" for rent, aka little house boats.

cheddar bus was having a great time on her first big trip of the year.

we thought this was lake tahoe at first.. we were both like hmmmm it must just look reeally far away from up here.....

^ it was actually donner lake. it was pretty!

then we found tahoe for suuuuuure. iss huuuuge!

we got suuuper lucky with a first-come first-served campsite at fallen leaf lake right near tahoe. super lucky. we thought for sure we'd just be sleeping on the side of the road.

i'd tried to book campsites at tahoe like 3 months prior to this trip, and they were ALLLL booked. i reckon people are booking these spots a year in advance.

but fallen leaf lake was gorgeous and the campground was great and we were happy.

see? happy camper pete totally in his element.

tahoe! so blue you are!

seriously gorgeous everywhere you look. it all feels mediterranean.

but the water did not feel mediterranean. it was collllllllld cold cold.

our airbnb at crystal bay! hellooooooooo i could have sat out on that porch for the rest of my life.

lake life perfection.

we went on a really fun kayaking journey that ended up in a not so fun full submersion into the ice cold lake (twice) with all our belongings and cell phones. i won't name the name of the two-time kayak flipper, but lets just say i was veryverymad.

^ is it totally weirdo to take pics of a stranger's shower? i liked her southwest vibes + plant motif.

and suddenly, snow! on the way out of tahoe.

^ weirdass middle of nowhere spooky shoe tree.

^ most of northern california & southern oregon looks something like this. this is the part of the drive where you go straight looney toon and lose yer mind.

so then you stop to let the bus cool down, drink a brewski, and take a whiz on the side of a highway.

^^ this photo is so forrest gump to me and i love it. because pete & forrest are my faves.

the last night we stumbled upon odell lake in oregon, which was a stellar random find and perfect timing as the sun was setting! this was princess creek campground.

as usual, these trips are so so fun but go by so so fast. the cheddar bus did great with no issues this time. busdriver pete did great, too!  love ya bof!

previous memorial day weekend volkswagen road trips:

here, to utah!

and here, down the west coast to san francisco!

all photos taken on my iphone 6.

qp

life lately, via iphone: v.3

soo many photooos.

here's a big ol' post of random iphone photos from the last few months. these are the things that happened sometime between may 2016 and july 2016. i am constantly taking photos on my phone and it just feels soo cathartic to put them in some sort of organized fashion and share them with people in some way. having this blog is a lifesaver for the old school die hard scrapbooker in me. it just feels like a traffic jam in my brain until i get each set of photos out of my system.

muchos fotos below!

^^^had to jump into this crazy fruit-as-roses trend and practice with some thangs. its easy and fun. you can pretty much make a rose out of anything if its the right ripeness. 

scrumptious new orleans style eats at roux in fremont. super good food.

^^^this is by our house. i never stop talking about how cool it is to live here.

stopped to get coffee and go to the bathroom at this cute shoppe in ballard one day. really glad i went in!

^^^ early spring mosquito watch. those little devils.

^^^this was when we were planning our road trip to montana that we never took. we went to utah instead. // also spotted this building in the university district of seattle that made me feel like i was in cuba or something. seattle does have an unusual amount of palm trees, actually.

first day out on the lake! its quite special having a friend with a boat :)

^^^fish taco boat. welcome to seattle.

mother's day at pete's parent's house. that's pete's cutie sister with chicken wings.

pete's parents have been eating pretty much all paleo/caveman food for the last few years. they honestly look amazing and have soo much energy.  those are chicken wings, lamb shanks, grilled bok choy, garlic mashed taters with goat cheese (they'll eat moderate amounts of cheese, only if it did not come from a cow). those goat cheese taters were durn good.

and then there's peter and me with our haul of free home run inn pizzas from brother tim. we eat cheese from all sources. 

have you ever had a home run inn pizza?? they are amazing. the crust is thin and crunchy - its like a pizza cracker! in a way.

^^^ our neighborhood rocks. love it love it.

i don't think i could ever move to a place where there isn't water somewhere nearby. its so relaxing and soothing.

^^^we just pop on our bikes and 5 minutes later, voila. guaranteed beaut of a view every day. spring and summer are especially great.

^^^west seattle, you are great.

^^^ this is from peter's and my overnight backpacking trip to goat lake. some of these photos i shot with the moment wide or moment macro iphone lens. i went hog wild on the macro shots out in the wild, but omitted 98% of them here. you're welcome.

my cute petey pablo sittin on a log. :)

juuust pumping our drinking water. it pretty much rained the whole time and we sat under the trees or hung out in our tent taking a zillion macro photos of every fabric in sight. haha.

we forgot to bring playing cards so our only form of entertainment was quizzing each other on the information on our boxed wine. this totally reminded me of how i spent my whole childhood...ya know before the internet ever existed! what a concept. my friends and i would do the weirdest shit all the time to entertain ourselves. i remember walking around the house and just staring/finding patterns & shapes in the texture on the wall/ceiling/floor. seriously. kids today just don't even know. i feel so wild and crazy being part of the generation who lived both completely without and also with the internet. total tangent there, but i think about that often.

if you've never camped or backpacked way in the mountains or not a standard campground, that there's the wilderness shitter ^^^ a wooden box. i feel bad for/wonder what sorry soul has to haul that smelly load down the mountain. maybe they just leave it there for eternity.

^^^home cookin.

below is my friend joe from work. he hosts taco nights at his house every couple of weeks. he makes us mojitos, too. what a guy. 

^^^ always fun and delicious times at joe's.

^^^ cut ourselves some fresh summer jorts.

here's some weird/fun stuff that goes on at work:

^^^i don't have a final shot of how this shoot turned out. just looks so goofy from an outsider's perspective hahah.

here's another weird behind the scenes of this adidas shoe at work. please note the barbecue tongs as dry ice grabbers. lolz. sooophisticated.

but here's how that shot turned out:

^^^national donut day. photo people gotta take photos before eating, duh.

that la croix cola flavor is funkyyyy.

^^^ me time. 

this is misleading. that's me eating pizza at the costco hot dog shack (as my gramps calls it), and there is proletariat pizza in white center. both deliciously wonderful pizza options.

urban chicken crossing.

marination makai. my local lovah. (we eat here a lot)

so this was a super fun day at work. went with a crew of coworkers to whidbey island to volunteer with summit assistance dogs and help clean up and prepare their property and facility for assistance doggies.

i've mentioned it before, but my company gives each employee 40 hours of volunteer paid time off. its so amazing that they not only encourage but fund all their employees to get out and volunteer with organizations that they care about.

we cleared out areas for puppy play zones, chainsawed big dead branches for firewood, pressure washed dog kennels, built chain link kennels and fences, and some lucky folks learned how to drive a tractor:

this is karl. he is so cute. whoever gets him as a service dog is a lucky dog.

speaking of dogs and work, here are some of the cute dogs that hang out at work mostly everyday. eeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

that's ben ^^^ and bubba. LOVE THEM.

below is zed.

^^^pete, joey, & levi // my friend lauren and her cutie mom jean and me! love those guys & gals.

company retreat shenanigans.

^^^ agh this one was so so so much fun.

father's day bbq at our place!

ZERKELS:

"they're the same...but different!" - that's my tagline for them.

what a precious photo of brother phil. haha.

solstice picnic times with my boo at the park near our house...solstice park!

^^^this was the solstice situation in seattle this year. 

lots of people from around the neighborhood met up at this park and this nasa lady was talking all about the sun and planets and such.

that's my bff katie. i didn't take this photo but i had it saved in my photos and just think its cute :)

^^^more seattle palm tree action. this is also our 'hood. gah so lucky to live here.

^^^did you play monopoly at the grocery store a couple months ago? what a royal waste of time. we won a jar of peanut butter. and then forgot to use the coupon before it expired. never again.

this is nothing but what i believe to be a cute photo of pete's toes while he snoozes. //  also my friends marisa & foster cooking up one of my blog recipes in oakland. love getting pics or comments from my friends who tried one of my recipes :)

on a serious note...

^^^ that is my amazing friend SARA on the right. i am so proud of her.

after the horrific killings that took place in the beginning of july, she organized a get together at her apartment and provided tons of insightful information (and snacks) and we all wrote letters to our state representatives addressing police brutality against people of color. the last couple of weeks in the news have been so tragic and just unacceptable. i am glad to have a compassionate friend like sara who helped her peers to take action on this very serious and real issue that's been plaguing our country the last few years. we each wrote to our local mayor and also to our state senator. i'm thinking sara probably collected 12-20 letters to send to the respective officials. i hope that our small efforts create even a drop of a ripple effect towards positive action at both federal and local levels.

if you want to get involved or write to your local or state representative regarding issues of police brutality or racial bias, check out Campaign Zero. this site is extremely informative and well organized.

thanks again for organizing this effort, sara. we need more people like you in the world.

i shall end this post with a photo of THE BEST COOKIE I HAVE EVER HAD. i stupidly, stupidly missed out on going to levain bakery when i was in new york, and i think those cookies probably are the actual best - i can tell by the way they look. but i haven't actually eaten a levain cookie. so THIS cookie from metropolitan market in seattle is THE BEST COOKIE. seriously...MIND BLOWN.

qp