Molly in New York in the summer. Coming soon: Molly in New York in the fall.

The last few shots of the roll always go to the plants.

Joshua Tree was wonderful and bizarre. We stayed at the 29 Palms Inn, where we ate our meals and went on a guided nature walk. We scheduled a Sound Bath at Integratron, which I highly recommend. Our trip actually ended in San Diego, but this is where my photos stop.

Please ask if you have any questions about our itinerary. These photos have been sitting for a while, so I was more interested in getting them up than being thorough. Now, back to the present.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

We had another long day of driving from Big Sur to L.A. We stopped at Point Lobos State Reserve to admire the seals and woke up early the next morning for a hike to the Griffith Observatory. (And we saw the amazing Turrell retrospective at LACMA.)

Drive, hike, eat, drink, sleep, repeat.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

Big Sur views from an evening walk at Deetjen's—another place to return.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

We left San Francisco after two days and drove south to Big Sur. We stayed up late at Deetjen's Big Sur Inn, sitting on the floor with a bottle of wine, pouring over journals left in the room. (It's a thing, apparently.) We read about others' children, divorces, travels, sex lives, dreams. We laughed, and each cried a few times. Ashlee worried about a ghost a visitor claimed to have seen in the room (in the journal from 1992). I laughed.

Midnight came and we went south along Highway 1—our weeklong guide—to the Esalen Institute for a night bath. We met at the side of the road and a man with a flashlight led a group of us down to the bathhouse. We changed out of our clothes, only in our skin, and we bathed in hot springs on a cliff. The hot water and the cold Pacific air, everything dark except for the stars above, everything silent except for the waves below. It was 3 a.m.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

We spent two days in San Francisco, mostly walking and eating a lot of pastry and ice cream—of which I won't bore you with the photos—a beer instead! While the other cities seemed more obvious, I couldn't quite put my finger on this one.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

Oyster shucking (and eating) near Tomales Bay and my first look at San Francisco.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

One of our favorite stops of the trip was spent in Boonville, CA. It was a long, windy drive through redwoods and then into Mendocino County—such a surprisingly beautiful landscape. We ate and drank and sat by the fire at the Boonville Hotel, which we had read about in the New York Times. We had homemade date scones the next morning and spent a good hour roaming around a nearby apple orchard before the next leg.

This part of California is called Anderson Valley—a place to return.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

Crescent City, California—a place near to my heart.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

Ashlee and I continued South, determined to make it to Crater Lake before dark and the Pacific before morning. We pulled over first for a storm and second for a car wreck. Everything flash flooded around us and then the sun came. We drove. I comforted a bleeding stranger on the side of the road and then the ambulance came. We drove.

We arrived at Crater Lake at dusk and then to the ocean just after midnight. My memory of the whole evening is a mix of blue, black, and blood—and Ashlee screaming in fear after turning a corner and seeing her first giant redwood.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

Ally and Jake escorted us south to Smith Rock State Park, where we hiked and then split ways—them back to Portland, us on to the Redwoods.

The sky was blue when we arrived and we took funny portraits and asked each other hypothetical questions and laughed so much, because that's what old friends do together.

It started drizzling, so we ducked into little caves as the water came down and then began to pour down. It was my first time hearing thunder "roll," although I'm sure that's not true. Maybe it was my first time noticing the thunder roll. Or: it was my first time sitting in a cave with two of my closest friends, waiting for a storm to pass, and listening to the thunder roll.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

Ally's window in Portland, Oregon. It's hard to get out and see the city when you can drink beer and play cards in the backyard instead.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

I tried to phone myself the other day, scrolling all the way through my "recent calls" log trying to find the number. A simple act of absurdity or an action of deeper meaning? I don't know. I had been feeling out of sorts.

Sometimes you search and search and search.

It's in front of you. It's within you. It's you.

You are what you're after.

My best friend from high school and I took a road trip down the West Coast last month. All the way down the West Coast—Seattle to San Diego, West Coast. We were gone for nearly two weeks.

We stayed our first night at the Ace Hotel in Seattle and had a dreamy lunch at Sitka & Spruce the next day, both pictured above.

Seattle to San Diego  |  August 2013

The last of these days, of this light and that produce.

Some quiet moments seaside in Maine. The fact that they were documented was a pleasant surprise when I took a couple rolls of Samuel's film in with mine. Sometimes you're so close to another human, you forget they have eyes of their own. I'm glad they have eyes of their own, that he has eyes of his own—even though we're often looking at the same thing.

Peas from my garden and flowers from my alley, but it's not July anymore.

It's August and I'm going a few places I've never been. I'll be back to my garden in a couple of weeks.

The man at the used bookstore told me: "Some people love her and some people hate her." Then, Sam cracked a joke about buying books you dislike for people you dislike. The old man liked that idea, and Sam felt proud.