Man, California traffic sucks, especially in the big cities. Don't even get me started on the heat or the cost of hotels. Screw that.

I knew that I couldn't go through with driving to Los Angeles and having to deal with the traffic and the smog and the wastelandy vibe that it gives off, or at least that it gives off to me. Bad vibes, man, bad vibes.

A joke: What's the best part of Los Angeles? The freeways out of it. Snap! I just made that up; feel free to work it into conversation.

Okay, I finally figured it out, how to not have California be such a significant part of the West Coast Museum Tour: screw Los Angeles.

The West Coast Museum Tour culminates in Vancouver, a town that I love all out of proportion to the amount of time that I actually spent there. Explanation: for grad school, I went to the University of Washington (the less said about that place, the better), and whenever I needed to chill out, I would drive up to Vancouver for some excellent Chinese food (go to Hon’s for the pot stickers) and then walk around Stanley Park, looking out at the bay and thinking vaguely sad and romantic thoughts. I'm a poet, man, give me a break.

Have you ever had one of those days where you have this vague feeling of dread, like something bad happened that you don’t know about, or it’s happening? I've felt like that since last week, ever since I figured out what a big production the West Coast Museum Tour was going to have to be if I want to get to all of the best West Coast museums.

I will be travelling this summer. There will be driving and staying in hotels (the cheaper, the better) and going into museums and looking at the art contained within the museums and then thinking about the art and then going to the next museum. The trip will start in San Diego, California (a six-hour trip from where I live) and end in Vancouver, British Columbia, and I'll be stopping at as many art museums as I can.