The PCH, Loads of Adventure, and Overdraft Fees

it's all sandra's fault, really.

well... some of it is k.c.'s fault.

it occurred to me months ago that i needed to go to california and run around with sandra. she was by far my best girl bud in japan, and i'd been missing her and her shenanigans like crazy. all school year, i'd been promising myself that i would make good use of my summer holiday, and a trip to california sounded like the perfect way.

enter k.c. we met several months ago and have been getting on wonderfully ever since. when i started making noises about going out west, he started waxing nostalgic about the two years he'd spent living in san diego. the weather is so perfect, the people are so great, there's so much to do, etc. he would just really love to show me around san diego.

the only little problem is that san diego is a mere ten hour drive from where i was planning to go in california.

after a great deal of discussing, debating, and counting the pennies in our piggy-banks, we decided we would indeed fly to sandra's... then make an epic journey down the pacific coast. and that is what we did. we saw everything from tahoe to the governator to pandas at the zoo, not to mention the drive down the pch (pacific coast highway) -- the most glorious ten hours i've ever spent in a car. courtesy of a good contact, we even spent a night at bacara, which was clearly way out of our income bracket.

here are some photos to make you jealous...

sandra and k.c. hiking at lake tahoe. tahoe was absolutely gorgeous -- bright blue and clean, tucked way up in the mountains -- and freezing cold. we had a blast hiking around emerald bay and climbing all over rocks like these.

we stayed at sandra's for three days of eating japanese food, randomly bursting into song, and hearing sandra's childhood tales of jew camp. then we took off at four o'clock in the morning to beat the rush hour chaos between sac and s.f. it's a good thing k.c. is a morning person because i'm really not fit to drive until at least nine.

random stop along the pch -- driving down highway 1 (also known as the pacific coast highway) redefined the term "scenic drive" for me. the only thing we had determined when we left home was when we would fly back. this left everything in between a blissful blur of spontaneity, which we took full advantage of, particularly during this drive. we stopped often and very randomly whenever the notion struck us.

getting our toes wet at carmel -- we stopped at carmel because we saw a sign on the highway for the "historic mission" and thought it might yield some good photos. we never found the mission, but we did find a beach and decided that was good enough. this is the first picture of me in the pacific ocean. (my toes are the pretty ones; k.c.'s are the big man toes.)

rose gardens at hearst castle, san simeon... thank you, i thought it was a great shot too.

funny story about hearst castle: the castle's on the side of a mountain in the middle of a huge piece of land that used to be the hearst ranch. when you get to the visitors' center, they put you on a bus to ride up the mountain and on the way, you listen to a recording about the history of the place. part of this is a little blurb about hearst's menagerie, which included thirty types of exotic grazing animals that roamed free on the ranch. a few ancestors of these animals are still living wild on the property around the castle. (this is the part where i got excited.) some of them are zebras. can you imagine how frickin' cool it would be to see a zebra just hanging out in california? so i decided to spend the rest of the day keeping an eye out for the zebras...

well, if you've followed my adventures in the past, you'll know that i'm not very lucky with spotting creatures of the woodland realm. in a scenerio sadly reminiscent of my moose-tracking expedition in the adirondacks, i didn't see any zebras.

but i could feel their presence.

admiring the ocean view at bacara -- as mentioned earlier, we went to the fabulous bacara resort & spa near goletta, ca. the resort was everything they promised and so much more. the room was wonderfully luxurious, the views were breath-taking, and the staff were downright cool. the food, though shockingly over-priced, was pretty scrumptious. the spa itself, however, was a bit of a let down. not to sound like a spa slut, but i've had better.

the national cemetery at point loma -- when we arrived in san diego, k.c. was thrilled to be back on his home turf and our entire stay was high-lighted by his always comical and unpredictable "this one time..." stories. as we drove up to point loma, he told the story of the one time that he took his scooter up the same very long and steep hill at about five o'clock in the morning. the story mostly went "so i was pushing and pushing" on the uphill parts and "here i was coasting" on the downhill parts with a few interjections of things like "here's where the navy guys passed me in their jeep and told me to go home..."

we also went to the san diego zoo, which was very cool. and here i did see zebras, but it wasn't the same.

and my very own photograph of one of the most photographed spots in america. i don't really like l.a., but we stayed here in hollywood for several days and had a pretty good time, in spite of the pollution, the traffic, and the general over-population.

so now i'm home. i have no money and some overdraft fees to pay, so it's a good thing that school starts up again next week.

until next time...

- g