The Sun Continueth

After our freezing night in New Mexico, we continued to be shocked by the amazingly warm weather in southern California. We split up, with Sara and Julia spending most of their time in San Diego while Annie, Tara, and Rachel used Annie's parents' house as a base.

The LA threesome's most epic adventure began as any other day would, except with delicious peeled grapefruit sections, tasty tea, and homemade granola. We ventured south to meet up with Julia and Sara at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, where we were met with the raucous calls of African jungle birds in the aviary. As soon as we were all together, we wandered down to the "Journey into Africa" tram, basically a glorified people transporter that you might see at Disney World or Six Flags. This one, however, took us through huge open enclosures teeming with African wildlife, not between the parking lot and the park's entrance gate. We saw countless types of antelopes, and learned more than we really wanted to know about the various mating habits of giraffes. One antelope in particular caught our eye: the springbok. The dominant male spends most of his time chasing away the less dominant males from his herd of females. Not only do they run, but they sort of hop on four springy legs. Quite hilarious to watch. After our approximated safari experience, we wandered around and looked for more animals. Our park visit ended with a ride on the "Conservation Carousel," a few minutes before the park closed.

We parted ways with the San Diego crew again, and headed to Solana Beach for incredible pizza (garlic and some other veggies) and delicious beer (an amazing in-house ESB) with Rachel's friend Jessie. We thoroughly enjoyed the SoCal surfer scene, though it was a little weird to be watching snowboarding on the TVs interspersed around the noisy, vibrant restaurant. After dinner, we wandered down to the beach (Rachel, to Jessie: "Is there a beach here?" Jessie: "It's called Solana Beach"). We felt right at home down on the beach, above which a "failing bluff" kept watch.

These activities already would make for a pretty full and satisfactory day. But no, it wasn't enough. Tara still wanted to connect with her friend Robbie, who it seemed would be in the Long Beach area at some point later that night. So after parting ways with Jessie (and Annie getting New Hampshire for her license plate list!), we headed up to Long Beach. We arrived without knowing where, exactly, in Long Beach Robbie was supposed to arrive. So we took Jessie's suggestion and stopped for the delectable concoction of frozen yogurt and random toppings that has turned into a nation-wide fad. It was quite delicious.

Suddenly, in the midst of our yogurt, we received the info we needed. We went down to the apartment and met up with Robbie and Ben, two Sandy Spring guys, and some others. As soon as we walked into their apartment, a high speed chase broadcast on the TV demanded our attention. It seemed that this crazy guy was trying to outrun a set of cops on SURFACE STREETS in LONG BEACH. Surface streets on which we had just been driving. We, needless to say, felt pretty connected to the whole thing. From high speed chase, our night only got better with a trip to a divey-yet-sceney Long Beach bar. A pretty sweet band was playing, we stood around for a while talking, and generally had a good time. Until last call. Around 2am. And we were still in Long Beach. About an hour away from our beds.

We all walked back to Ben's apartment, and continued talking. We somehow got involved in some pretty in-depth conversations about string theory, fractals, and gay rights. Somehow they all related to each other. Needless to say, it took a while to unravel the intricacies involved, and so we didn't end up leaving until about 4am. Annie, Tara, and Rachel had a pretty giddy and surprisingly alert ride back to Studio City, where sleep awaited. We arrived a little after 5am, giving at least Rachel (and probably Annie and Tara as well) the novel experience of sneaking into a house that late. It was definitely one for the record books.