Last weekend, I left Long Beach and drove up to San Francisco to hang out with Joe Clifford and read at Lip Service West.  On the way up, I drove on the 5, and I was blown away by the shifting almost fickle landscapes of California.  It didn’t take me too long to drive to the bay area, but once I was in San Francisco, the traffic was terrible.

Overall, this was an amazing trip, and I’m not going to share too much about it, because I’m going to write a piece about the trip for another publication.  But I had the chance to hang out with a great writer and fellow FIU alumni, Joe Clifford, and meet another great bay-area writer, Tom Pitts.  The cool thing about talking to these guys is that you realize they’re all about community, especially Clifford. He idolizes the community of the Beats and how they all helped each other out.  And he’s right; community is an incredibly important aspect in being a writer, and if our generation of writers learns anything from the past, we have strength in numbers.

Well, after consulting Facebook before I left, I decided to take the 1 home back to Long Beach.  I really didn’t know what I was in for. It turned out to be one of the most amazing drives of my life, and it felt like I had spent several hours driving through a dream.  Big Sur, well, I won’t say anymore…check out the pictures on the next page.  The drive took me 11 hours!

Oh, and if you’re in L.A. tonight, come see me read at Book Soup at 7 with a ton of other great Rattling wall writers!  Click “More” to see the pics.