San Diego or Bust

Hello, my people! We are clean and sleeping in fresh beds at the moment - four days of not showering will really make you glisten.

Just a quick entry to dish on the highlights of Sara and I's journey into the land across from Mexico - San Diego. It was groovy. We stayed with Sara's friend Pace, who is a Maryland transplant who is the most chill person that has ever existed. He lives in Imperial Beach - a neighborhood run by Latinos and Asians - and he's an INCREDIBLY nice, smart guy who was a phenomenal host. Staying with him for 3 days was quite possibly the funniest/most awesome experience I have ever had, and the rundown of what happened went something like this:

We arrived at his house, a glorious building oozing of a laid-back, artistic, Cali surfer vibe, and during the first 10 minutes found out that he "designs life support systems for marine animals" for a living. Dude...what? Soooo I dug further and basically, he works with filtration systems and "makes the water blue" at aquariums and other facilities. HHAHA amazing. We later asked him how long he'd been at his place, and he said several months, and that when he first heard about the place, he didn't want to bother moving into it because "Did you see the 200 - lb fish tank downstairs?" So random. Oh yeah he also has piranhas in the living room.

So our first he took us down to Imperial Beach, where Sara and I dug our feet in the sand and seriously, it was like we had never felt sand before. WE MADE IT TO THE PACIFIC! Wheeeeeeee! We walked along the boardwalk, and about halfway through Pace hopped over the "Do Not Cross" railing and perched on a teeny-tiny little deck that, by the way, had no railings whatsoever. Sara and I followed, because I mean what the hell we are in San Diego, right? So we crossed, and we inched our way over to an even teeny-tinier segment where there was maaaaybe 2 feet of plank between us and being battered into little pieces of flesh by the Pacific Ocean. It was, needless to say, sketchy. But only the first of many sketchy things to be done whilst being toured by Pace....

The Pacific Ocean was INCREDIBLE, by the way, and we watched the waves crashing from behind which was a spectacular, mesmerizing experience. What lives down there? What is there right now? What does it feel like? How cold is it? SO MANY QUESTIONS AHH. I will say that after having gotten used to small bodies of water like the Chesapeake and the Chester River, it was pretty mind-blowing to see water on such a large scale. Kinda like when I ordered a large fountain soda and thought it was big, only to see a trucker the next day with a Big Gulp that was bigger than Annie's head. Yeah, kinda like that.

The next day we met up with Tara, Rachel and Annie and went animal perusing at the San Diego Wildlife Park. Saw some pretty beastly animals...California condor...fat rhinos...awkward giraffes. We got to pet some African gazelle in a petting corral (more or less), and Sara had no part in it. She does not do animals. On burgers and without cheese, but not when they are living.

DAY 2: LA JOLLA. Sketchy adventures Part Dos. Pace took us here without really telling us anything beforehand (which is pretty much how the whole SD trip went: Pace just kind of assuming we knew what he was talking about). We figured since we were going to a beach we might be going on a nice little stroll, which it started out as. Until, that is, he opened the gate and told us we had to crab-walk down the muddy, beach cliff. That worked out fairly well, and Sara and I did our thing, until we came to a steep spot where Pace told us "Alright, dude, see - this rope isn't gonna go anywhere. It's been here for a long time but you just gotta go down it as if it's gonna break on you any second. And if you fall, fall on your face. Cause if you fall on your back - it's all over. Ok?" If I could draw you a stick picture of this rope, it wouldn't take very long because it was just some old line that some person tied onto a rock years ago. Very frayed, but oh man no biggie, because it was tied to other ropes that were supporting it and were equally as frayed. This was shady. I'm sitting here writing this blog now so I made it out alive, and even though she slipped towards the end and dangled as she hung on, Sara totally made it too. It was all worth it, and we found a nice little spot in the sun next to the anemones...

(Earlier that day we also had lunch with Pace's roommate, OG, a super nice guy with long dreads and a funky demeanor. We talked to him for a while, asked him how he knew Pace, etc etc.
.....And then found out from Pace two days later that he's the percussionist for Slightly Stoopid. What!!??!) Anyways...

That night after the Beach Cliff Incident, Pace kept talking about "going to TG's", and again, just kind of assumed that Sara and I knew what he was talking about. He wasn't really talking to us about TG's, but more he was talking to his roommate so we never really had a great opportunity to ask what the hell TG's was. A bar? Someone's house? A restaurant? After much confusion we went and found out that it was a guy's house, and the house was a trip in itself. It was right on the beach, and was filled with surfing trophies and painted canvases. Everyone there - from the people our age to the people in their 50s - was welcoming to us, and the California-surfer-hippie scene was incredibly interesting. I soaked it up while I could....and on a side note, Pace definitely made a lot more sense after we met his dad and uncle. There were a lot of bizarre things that happened that night, but what was most random was that we had gathered for the purpose of watching a championship UFC match, which we did, and learned about. Did you know that in UFC, you can't gouge out eyes, or make any crotch shots? Other than that, it's allll open, men. I left early to pass out as I was exhausted, but Sara stayed at the chill UFC house and hustled some older men out of $80 in poker. Baller!!!

OOH yes, I forgot to mention that Pace also showed us his "Spooner Lab", which was a feast for the eyes. He, his uncle, and his friend started a company where they make, essentially, skateboards without wheels, that they sell as boards to ride on. He told us that the idea derived from when he, his buddy, and uncle were messing around one day and cut the top off of a dig igloo. It's a really creative invention, and he gave us two to take on our merry way. We tried it out at one of the National Parks...we dug it. This is the website: http://shop.thespooner.us/main.sc go! seek! the spooner!

So, that was pretty much it. Yeah, nothing much interesting happened at all. It was really dull.
Good thing we at least now know who to call when we need our whale shark tanks filtered.

xx, Julia
(PS - Everyone go to San Diego! It's muy bueno.)