A Splash of 21 Humor

Make it fun! Life, that is.

Friday, June 08, 2007

California Love!

So for Week #2, I flew to Los Angeles for vacation. My first order of business Tuesday morning (after arriving late Monday night) was finding a medical clinic… boil #1 had led to boil #2 which according to the doctor, means I had a staph infection. Fun. A few hundred dollars later, I was loaded with medicines and ointments. I swear I could’ve treat about 100 odd problems with the multitude of ointments, creams, etc. in my suitcase.

I spent Tuesday afternoon walking around Hollywood, reading my book (I read 1.5 books on this vacation!), and sleeping in sunny Runyan Canyon. On Tuesday, I took the city bus to Santa Monica and hung out on the beach. More glorious reading and sleeping.

On Wednesday, I took the train north to Santa Barbara (2 hour ride). It was a lovely trip through the fertile fields of California’s valleys and directly along the Pacific Coast (at points, the train ran along the beach). You all know how I’m totally in awe and fascination of Americana… well, that’s what I felt watching the workers in the fields this early California morning. I had one of those nostalgic, “these people are working the land just like we have been doing for hundreds of years,” moments.

Santa Barbara was amazing. After sleepily leaving the train, I got some directions to a coffee shop (needing my java fix), and from there got directions to the visitors center. The ladies there gave me a map of the town and directed me to the bicycle rental shop, where I rented a trusty mountain bike as my mode of transportation of the day. First stop = Santa Barbara Zoo.

As you all know, one of my favorite attractions, period, is the zoo. This one was no exception. I ate a corn dog and walked around for about two hours.

Then I biked back to town, down State Street (the main street), and up the foothills of the mountain range to visit the Santa Barbara Mission. It was very cool and worth the trip even though I thought I may die during the biking. I actually walked quite a bit of the final mile because my legs were so sore (not to mention trying to bike with two very badly placed boils...). A random man that passed me on the street must've seen the exhaustion in my face because he offered to trade me his lunch for my bike (I didn't accept).

I toured the mission and biked back through town and had a quick fish and chips dinner on the pier/wharf and then returned my bike. I had a nice chat with a local girl from Carpinteria on the ride back to L.A. We discussed East Coast / West Coast differences since this was my first adventure West and she had never been East. Interesting opinions and thoughts.

On Friday - Sunday, I spent the weekend in San Francisco with Emily and Marcia. We had a lovely time hanging out with Marcia's college friends, doing outdoorsy stuff, seeing the musical "Jersey Boys" (in which one of M's friends was a lead), and driving the PCH back to L.A. Since Emily wrote a hilarious, bang-up recap of this portion of my trip, I'd like to direct you to her blog entry. Please read it!

I'll post some pictures here when I get a chance... have been busy busy with the new job and getting stuff caught up at home. Big love.