Me and the roommates got in one last weekend of California exploring, this time on the Central Coast. We first drove to Carmel and Monterey, both of which have their charms. Carmel made me wish I had more money and Monterey, despite being kind of gross-touristy was cool with all its Steinbeck connections. We spent most of the late afternoon and evening in Santa Cruz, first wandering around trying to find me a t-shirt displaying a banana slug, then roaming through this book store. We finished the night with some of the staff from the summer camp where SeaAPea used to work. Had ice cream at Marianne's (love it, crazy-good flavors) and then snuck a 12-pack of Bud Light into our cabin at the camp. For most of the evening, I’d been feeling kind of old and jaded (hanging out with college kids will do that to you), but then, smuggling contraband beer into a “dry” camp made me feel 19 again. We actually bought the cans of Bud Light simply because they’d make less noise than bottles of better beer.
All in all, a great day. So great, in fact, I’ve left out a few details. I’m sort of wiped, though, and paragraphs require too much effort. Here are the other highlights.
- I thought I lost my car keys in Carmel and then, after frantic searching, found them exactly where I’d left them: in the front pocket of my purse (natch).
- Met the most pompous 25-year-old college senior, ever. (A couple of hints for his future conversations with girls: No, we do not want to hear a 10-minute explanation of your senior thesis. No, we don’t want to hear about the challenges of applying to grad school when “only two universities in the world have programs” in what you want to study. No, we do not want to know how your confidence that you’re “saved” informs your answers to dumb hypothetical questions.).
- Saw a couple banana slugs.
- Saw a sea lion.
- Took more beach pictures (I think I might have to create some kind of panorama of the California coast. I seem to be photographing all of it this summer.).
- Slept in a cabin with no less than 200 dead termites on the floor (bearable, since I finally got to see the site of so many of SeaAPea and Hillsity’s stories).
