the wikiCommunity Experience

I woke up pretty early and did some more research trying to figure out how we were getting from San Diego to Phoenix, where we would be meeting a friend to travel to the Grand Canyon. Luke and Steve went off to work, and Paul, Carlos and I went out to breakfast. Carlos took us to this really good breakfast spot. Yum.

After breakfast, Carlos took us site seeing a bit. We stopped along the bay at this cool spot. We posed for a success picture along the bay as we had conquered the USA, and then went up to Cabrillo National Monument and Point Loma with some great overlooks over the city. Before sailing, we went down to one more spot that was on the ocean. Carlos’s car began overheating, so we let it sit with the hood up, while we checked out one of his favorite spots. The pictures will not do it justice, but knowing this in advance, I took about a thousand.

After that, we got back in the car. It quickly overheated again, and Carlos said that he would have to head home and we would miss out on the sailing trip. It was unfortunate, but seemed like the right thing.

At the last minute, after we had already started heading back, he turned around and said screw it. It was time for sailing. Carlos took us out in the San Diego Bay around Coronado Island. We were out for 2 hours or more, just enjoying the sun and perfect weather. Carlos taught Paul and I all about how to swing the boom and jib and this and that. Paul and I did our respective jobs of keeping the ship afloat

Keeping a lookout for rebel pirates (is there any other kind)

Look at that guy... hard at work

It was an absolute blast, and I hope to be able to do it again next summer.

When we got back, I noticed an email on my phone. It was someone offering a ride to Phoenix from San Diego on Friday, when we needed it! Sweetness. I called the emailer, Kelly, and she confirmed that it was going to happen. Perfect, everything worked out. Notice a theme here?

Carlos’s car survived the trip back safe and sound. Paul and I hung out with Cody and his dog Suzy for a while. When Luke and Steve returned it was football, football, football, so Paul and I went to grab some food with Carlos. They had been talking about how good the Mexican was (my favorite) as we were about 10 miles from the country, so he took us to one of their favorites. We rode there on the bikes. I got a Vegan burrito that was delicious.

When we came back, the guys were watching 300. What a shock… I think every football fan worships that movie. It’s a decently long movie, and by the time it was over, I was pretty tired. Time for bed. We were really enjoying San Diego, and now that we had a ride to Phoenix we were truly relaxing.

Life was good.

When I woke up, I had to go to the bathroom, so I went to the campground community restrooms. Apparently I didn’t lock my door too well, because I had a visitor during my relief of duty. Yikes. Paul broke the tent down while I was in the bathroom, and we were nearly ready to roll when I got back.

Once we started biking, it wasn’t long before we had entered a military area called Camp Pendleton. There were tanks and planes and whatnot all over. It was a relatively nice ride through the camp as traffic was very light, and the terrain was agreeable.

We exited the camp on the south end and pulled into a town called Oceanside. We stopped there with about 30 miles remaining in our trip. Weird, after all this time. I got a disappointing sandwich at a gas station (is it really disappointing though… I mean, how high could my expectations have been looking back?)

When we left Oceanside, we biked along the beach for a while. We turned slightly inland, and rose up our last hill. When we got to the top, we just passed a woman. On the way down the other side, I was struck from behind again. I was sure Paul was determined to not let us finish the tour unscathed. Paul had a different take on the situation and suggested it was my fault. Being the understanding person I always am, I was surprised even at myself that a smart ass comment, again suggesting it was clearly his fault, came out. Paul then did what he had a few other times on the trip when he was completely incensed with me. I got the silent treatment for about 10 minutes. I only write about this here to point out how very little we squabbled, and how funny it usually was since I have not written about it before, and can count on three fingers the amount of times something like this happened throughout the trip. Good stuff. Agree to disagree buddy. Curious, does anyone know who is at fault in a back-end accident on the road? Ha…. jokes.

Knowing that I was looking for a soccer fields, and hopefully competitors, Paul followed me as I pulled off the road into UCSD campus in La Jolla, just north of San Diego. We were shocked to see no students or anyone around campus, but when we got to the soccer field, it was full. The guys there informed us school wasn’t in for another few weeks. Ah… made sense. There were about 15 of us when we got going, and it was a good, skilled game. Lots of fun.

When the game ended, we headed out to finish the last leg of our day, week, month, and trip. After some riding we made a quick stop to get some food at a grocer, while we tried to figure out where we’d stay. We decided to keep biking until I found somewhere I could get online. We pulled up to Mission Beach, past Pacific Beach (which I would later find out to call PB) , where I saw a bunch of hotels. Figuring I could steal someone’s internet connection, I stopped on a bench on the beach in front of a group of the hotels. Sure enough, I got on, and was able to get a few numbers of the warmshowers list. Although it was already getting late, I was able to secure us a spot to stay that night with a guy named Luke from the list. A glove save, and a beauty.

Since we were all set, we relaxed along the bike path and waited a while to leave, so that Luke would be home.  We watched some surfers do their thing When we ready to go, we only had a few miles to make it into Ocean Beach , where Luke and friends lived. It only took us a few minutes to cover the final miles of our trip. We rolled into OB swelling with a sense of accomplishment, and to a lesser degree hunger. We pulled up to the house, and I checked the odometer that read 6013 miles. Holy shit.

We met the three guys who lived there, Steve, Cody, and Luke right off the bat. Everyone was really friendly; we knew we were in good hands. Steve began grilling, and a friend Carlos stopped by as well. After we got settled in and showered up, we went to grab beer with Carlos. On the walk, Carlos offered to take us sailing the following day, as he worked on ships in the harbor and had some special privileges. I had never gone before, and was really excited.

We returned with the beer to plenty of good grilled meat and veggies. Some more friends came over. To make things better, they had on demand HBO. That means, Curb Your Enthusiasm, with Larry David, voted the best show on TV by geniuses everywhere. Oh it was great.

We were floating on cloud 34 I think, after having finished one of the most amazing things either of us had ever done. We were among NEW friends, and just enjoying life.

Life was preTTTTTy good.

I again woke up and did some writing, eager to catch up (much like I am now). Mimi got up early as well and began making stuff for breakfast. We were in need of a few ingredients, that I swung out to pick up on the bike down the street.

When I got back, Mimi decided to cook up a storm. She bought some extra stuff they wouldn’t normally eat and decided to cook it all for us before we left, including steak! Everyone in the house came up to eat, and we had a nice large breakfast. We watched some tennis for a while during and after, as we delayed our departure a little. Mimi kept insisting that we could stay another day if we wanted, but it was time for us to keep going, otherwise we might not ever leave.

We said goodbye , and I again promised I would return. Mimi said not to promise, and that men always do that, so I’m determined to make good on it. When we got back to the road heading south, we encountered some of the most challenging riding of the trip. This time it was not the terrain, but rather the populous area. The book had warned of the difficulty of riding this certain section, and it was a little hairy at times, but we clearly made it out fine.

When we exited the busy area, we were out of L.A. County, and had entered the O.C. (Orange county), home of fabulous shows like “The O.C.”, and “Laguna Beach” that primarily focus on Americans obsession with people with real intelligence, good acting ability, and worth rather than superficial glamor. Gotta love it.

We stopped at Huntington Beach, a well known, massively popular and massively massive beach. It was really a very beautiful beach, with very beautiful people everywhere. Okay, I’ll stop doing the double double thing. Paul and I put out the vibe near the volleyball court, but unfortunately all the girls were so intimidated by us that none of them mustered up the courage to approach us.  Understandable. It was really embarrassing… for them.

However, as we seemed to be much better at attracting old men, we began talking to this guy named Carl who was planning on doing a trip from San Diego to Florida… sort of reverse of what we did. Good luck man.

After we had had our fill of Huntington, we biked it another 15 or so down to Laguna Beach. When we made it to Laguna, we located some food at a grocer and made our way towards the beach. We found this cool small street facing the ocean with little benches to sit at overlooking the ocean. There were tons of surfers that made for a nice sight to drink our chocolate milk and eat our food too.

We hung in Laguna for a while, until the smell of money that permeated the air became too much for us. We biked a bit more as the sun was setting stopping at a diner that was somewhat expensive. I opted for a remaining Clif bar while Paul ordered some food. We hung out there for a long time; fortunately, we had a really nice waitress.

Leaving the diner, we headed out in the darkness for a couple mile ride to the state beach where we intended on camping. We had a difficult time locating the hiker/biker sections at the park, which was a bit frustrating. The campground was packed with rowdy campers likely getting their last of the summer camping in. Nonetheless, once we had the tent setup, and I put on a movie on the laptop, Paul was out in roughly 12 seconds. I shut the computer and quickly followed suit.

We could feel the end approaching. We had pretty much all but decided for sure that we would be done biking in San Diego, which was about 60 miles away. We would be done the next day. A time of reflection was upon us, but not yet. Time for sleep, we were still enjoying every moment. Life was good.

I got up and wrote some blogs since I had been falling behind. Danielle had gone to class, and Miriam to work. The house was vacant as we prepared to leave. Something didn’t feel right since Paul and I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. After some deliberating, we decided to stay to another day, and say goodbye the right way.

After I wrote a blog or two, Paul used the computer to make a Facebook invitation to a coming home party at his house. Now I realize why everyone organizes their entire life through Facebook since it only took him about 3 hours to get halfway done with it. Sweet. We did sort of model the invitation on a Top Gun theme, so we figured an appropriate picture was necessary with our new shades.

Danielle returned from school and asked us if we would want to meet her friend out for some food later. We planned on it for later. In the meantime, Paul hung out at the house while I went for a bike ride. Withdrawals I guess. I rolled down to Hermosa Beach, where we had been two nights prior. There were loads of people all over the bike paths to Hermosa, and I enjoyed just casually strolling (unusual for me) amidst the hoards.

When I returned, Mimi had returned from work, and decided to come along to grab some food. We drove back to Hermosa where we met Danielle’s friend Triana at a Brazilian restaurant. They were hosting a party there, and told us at the door basically, ‘…well, you can eat here, but the party’s in 45 minutes, and we’re going to rush you out.’ We decided it was fine, and ate there with no problems. Maura’s party was not disturbed by our presence.

After our awkward dinner, we went over to the bar where Triana worked for some “discount” drinks. Triana was running a buy one get one special that we didn’t see any signs for, and seemed to only apply to us. Odd.

After a couple drinks, and hanging out for a while, we headed back to the Lenglets to regroup. When we got there, we lost any ambition to head back out for the night, as Jeff Foxworthy’s sheer charm (dork) was enough to keep us in watching “Are you smarter than a 5^th grader”. That southern charm will never get old. After that we watched some silly dog show that lasted like three hours. Good old American television. Danielle didn’t quite make it for the whole episode. The rest of us retired shortly after she and Shana.

As the next day was the weekend, Mimi promised to make us breakfast the following morning before we left. Good deal.

Life was good.

Eager for the idea of breakfast the girls had conjured up in my head the night before, I roused everyone so we could get going to breakfast. Mimi agreed to let us use her car to get to Disney… oh yeah, I forgot to mention. We were going to Disney. A coast to coast Disney tour is really what it came down to as we nearly started and nearly ended with Disney. … Anyway, back to my ever elusive train of thought. Everyone came to, and we headed off to breakfast.

The breakfast was really good and we were treated with some extra goodies. Unfortunately not everyone eats as quickly as I, so I waited around the table with visions of Mickey and Pluto dancing in my head, while the normal humans finished their food. We went back home with Danielle and said bye to Tamara.

We hopped in Mimi’s mini cooper, and floored it (just kidding) to Disney. We didn’t hit any traffic, so we made good time. Half of the wait was driving around these massive parking structures once we got into the park. It was a Thursday in September, not exactly peak season.

We were very appreciative for the tickets from Marky Mark Ceglarski, our former (and forever) teammate on the trip who had procured a couple of tickets, before we entered the park. However, we were much more appreciative once we got there. They were accepting cash,credit, or your soul. Thanks again.

The Thursday in September worked to our advantage once inside as lines were virtually non existent. We did pretty much everything in both parks with time left over to spare. I wasn’t as trigger happy as the first Disney escapade of the trip, so I don’t have pictures from every 5 steps, which must have been a factor.

After we were all parked out, we went to Downtown Disney to get some food. We got some Jamba Juice and Mexican. Two of my most favorite foods. Downtown Disney has such a nice ambiance, we just sat around taking it in for a while. Paul even tried out to act as an over zealous Mickey fan for a Disney commercial. Still waiting on a callback. I think he sold it.

There were also amazing musicians all over, and one particular violinist (is that right?) who was really talented. He was so good that broke ass Paul bought his CD for something like $15. The guy was amazing. We actually talked to him for a while about our bike trip in between his sessions.

We left DD, and headed back to Redondo. I figured I should replace Paul’s shades and the ones that I had lost, so we went to the place where those who care most about optics go…. Target. We were able to get a couple of aviators for $12 total, that would come to use as both protection from the sun, and for Top Gun lookalike poses. Very important. Side note: you should know that as I’m writing this in Boston I have since misplaced my shades again.

Anyway, when we got back from Target, everyone was in bed. We were pretty tired too, so we flicked on the tele and fell asleep to something we would turn off at 4:00 in the morning. Disney was a lot of fun, and tomorrow we would be back on the road for new experiences.

Life was good.

Peter got up really early for work and I had intended on getting up with him to say goodbye. When I woke up, Shannon had already left for school, and I missed both of them. I was upset to say the least. Susan prepared some breakfast for us while we collected our items and prepared to go. We said goodbye to Lancelot and were on our way… back to the coast.

Susan dropped us off on the 1 near Pepperdine on her way. We said our goodbyes, and I promised to return with Meghan sometime soon. We really had a great time with the west side Ceglarskis… clearly… we ended up spending 3 extra days with them than we intended. Back to life on the road… sort of.

From there Paul and I made a quick ride to Paul Beach, or as the locals call it, Muscle Beach. We played around on the gym stuff they have there for a while. It was loads of fun, and equally as fun to watch the regulars do the rings. Paul did a pretty good job himself.

After hanging out on the beach for a few hours we left there with only another 15 miles or so to Redondo Beach, where we would be staying with the Lenglets, old friends of Paul’s family. Nearly the entire way to Redondo was a beach path, so we pedaled slowly and enjoyed the scenery.

When we got close, I plugged the address into the ol’ GPS. I made a slight error with the address which routed us inland. While we were riding, someone yelled to Paul that he had a flat tire. He looked down to inspect, mind you while we were going about 20mph, and didn’t realize we were approaching a red light. Fortunately for him, he was directly behind me, and smashed into the back of my bike. We had gone unscathed for nearly the entire trip. I kept joking that he was trying to end it early. Amazingly neither of us fell, but the damage was done. He had broken a spoke of mine, and bent the rear rack that our bags sit on pretty badly. The rim would need fixing, but was ridable temporarily.

I then realized I put in the wrong address so we turned around and headed the right way. Turns out she was a few blocks off the ocean as opposed to a few miles inland. Much better. Miriam left a key for us to get in since we arrived before she was back from work. We let ourselves in and scared the crap out of their dog Shana. When Miriam (Mimi) returned Shana was much more relaxed and fun. Mimi was extremely nice form the get go. She insisted on making us dinner, but if we had plans we could do whatever we wanted. We found out that she had made us dinner on Sunday when we were supposed to come. We felt bad, but her daughter Danielle didn’t mind.

We agreed to be fed, tough choice, but first order of business for me was fixing the bike. I went online and found a close bike shop. Paul and I headed down to the shop. I went in and talked to a guy who said it would be ready Friday around 2:00. It was Wednesday and we planned on going to Disney the following day, and leave Redondo on Friday. I was a little concerned they might delay, but what was I going to do?

After we left the shop, we kicked the soccer ball around on the beach for a while. After an hour or so I got a call from the bike shop saying my bike was ready. Great news. Out of the courtesy from trying to run me off the road, Paul paid for the relatively cheap repair. We got back on our bikes, and headed home for some dinner. Wait… is that dog wearing shoes?

By then, Mimi’s daughter Danielle was home. She is our age and is attending USC graduate school to become a professional writer. How exciting. Mimi’s brother also lived with in the very large condo, with his wife Nina, and two sons. We all had a big family dinner plus us. The food was lovely. Thanks Mimi. Tony’s son Tre thought we were pretty cool too … so cool he wanted to wear Maverick’s mask (although that term has become significantly less cool in recent times).   Sunset from inside the condo

Danielle called some friends and decided she would take us out. A hot spot in their area is called Hermosa Beach. We rode right through it earlier in the day en route Redondo. We went bar hopping to a few different places, and ran into one of Danielle’s friends that was celebrating a birthday. One highlight for me was playing old school Pacman at the last place we went to. Two player style. I emerged victorious, but it was likely due to my relative sobriety. To end the night, we went out on a long fishing pier at the end of the strip at Hermosa. It smelled a bit of fish guts, but was nice under the stars.

Paul, Danielle, Danielle’s friend Tamara, and I all jumped in a cab and headed back to her house. Tamara decided to stay the night, so we planned on breakfast the next morning at a diner they both work at. They claimed the food was great, and we would get it cheap since they were an inside job. Worked for me.

Paul and I again got couches to lay our heads down on. It seems we went in streaks when it came to pampered sleeping vs. camping. Oh well, no complaints…. we had it good now. What a fun night.

Life was good.

I got up with everyone before they went off to work. Peter said I don’t sleep much because I don’t want to miss anything… something his mother use to say to him. Sounds about right. I saw everyone off, and when Paul was ready, we grabbed the truck and headed out.

Our first stop was at Sport’s Authority down the street. I was in dire need of some new kicks. Sure enough, I found some cheap sneaks that would fit the bill weighing in at a hefty $23. I’ll take it. Now I was ready for Rodeo.

We cruised down towards Pepperdine University which has to be one of the most beautiful campi (tehe) in the nation. We then road the 1 into L.A. and made our way to Rodeo Dr. Some of the highlights were me un-popping the collar on a mannequin, and Paul looking super fly. [PICTURE] On one pair of sunglasses that was on sale a tag read “look good, feel rich… you can always lie about the price tag”. It was funny, they would brag about how expensive their stuff is, versus us bragging about what a good deal we got on something. We determined stores for wealthy people were really lame, so we left after a short stint on Rodeo.

We rolled through Hollywood , and up through Beverly Hills to check out some of the mansions. We came to a really nice view of the city at one spot. Gorgeous… beautiful golden fur.

We wanted to beat rush hour, so we headed back to Westlake. We rolled through Bel-air and said hello to Carlton, who is still living with Philip, Vivia, and Hillary. When we got back to the Cegs’ house, we decided to make dinner for them. Paul stayed true to the fazzOOL, but we needed ingredients. We went to the grocery store with Shannon to pick up the stuff. She is quite the spazz, and was a lot of fun at the store. She, being a Ceglarski, was able to squeeze into the freezer in the frozen food section, and shut the door behind her. It was hilarious.

We got back and prepared the food. And by we, I mean Paul. Everyone loved the meal. Even Shannon ate her whole serving, and she is known to be extremely picky. Paul done good. We had a nice long dinner, where we chatted about some of Peter and Susan’s early days. (nothing to do with anything, just love that picture) Entertaining stuff to say the least. We broke the news to them that we actually intended on leaving the next day, which they were slightly disappointed by, but was likely the right move, or else they might start charging us rent. Baaaaazing.

After insisting that it would be too dangerous to ride down to the coast from their house in the morning, I finally relented to Susan’s demand to bring us to the coast. We would leave with her at 9:00 the next morning.

Another night on the couch was nice, and we were going to stay with another family the following day after a very short riding day. Man, soCal was treating us well.

Life was good.

I got up first again. We had planned on heading back to the Ceglarskis’ house late morning or early afternoon. I felt good, and didn’t want to “cheat” so I decided to bike it back. They lived, conveniently, on the other side of a mountain from the campground. Paul was perfectly okay with taking a ride in the car, so he did. We broke everything down, and helped pack up. It took a couple hours since they had quite the setup. Peter hugged it out with the tent because he would miss it as it was likely there last camping excursion for a while. I left when we were nearly done to get a head start. I left my bags with them to lighten the load a bit, and headed for the hills.

The ride was quite nice, with hardly any traffic. As it was Malibu, the few cars that passed were worth more than my parents house. I saw a Ferrari, Lamborghini, and the new 6 figure Audi. Nifty, money well spent too. I cruised up the hill fast enough, to fly down the other side and make it to the Cegs house before they got there. Ha, I was hoping I could do it.

When they came home, Paul and I went swimming for a while, and threw all our filthy clothes in the laundry. We hung around until it was time to leave for the Dodgers game. We got the tickets from Susan’s work (thanks so much) and Peter decided to man up and come with us. We were fortunate to hit hardly any traffic, rarely ever the case in southern California. We got to the game with plenty of time and made our way over to our seats, on the left field side, in close proximity to “Hollywood Manny”.  http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3260/2824499742_3d8241d60d.jpg?v=0

The game was exciting; we finally made it to a big league park after planning on it in Seattle. Along with tickets came entrance to this restaurant down right field line that gave a great view of the field. We got a massive dessert that was fit for the three of us. Dee-lish.

After the dessert we went back to our original seats to watch the rest of the game. The sun had set, and cast different shades of purple across the horizon. It was amazing. I was among a crowd of others who stopped to take a picture of it as we were exiting the park it was that remarkable.

We got in the car, and headed back to Westlake Village. Peter had offered for us to take his truck the following day to go and checkout some of L.A. since we would only ride the coast going through it. Sounded like a plan.

We got back to their house and relaxed to some TV on a big comfortable couch. We weren’t sleeping outside for the first time in many moons. Lovely.

Life was good.

The next morning I got up a bit earlier than the rest of our site. We had a long night. As I strolled over to our neighboring campers, I was questioned about the fun we had the night before. I had to defend Peter’s honor by insisting we were all in on the noise, which was true to a degree.

When I came back, our site was stirring a bit. We had some bagels and cereal for breakfast. After breakfast Paul and I played with the younger kids (to get them out of their parent’s hair for a bit). We played a digging game with the girls, and threw rocks at a tree with the boys. We ended up hurling boulders until our arms were hanging. Ouch.

After that we sought retribution for the punishment we received the previous day in the game of Sequence. We played for a while with Susan and Peter. Peter then had to leave to bring the girls home, so our game was on pause. Too be continued.

In the meantime, we met some more of the typical camping crew and their children. One of Susan’s friends Linda stopped in to drop off her son Andy. While she was there she helped feed the addiction and sat in for a game of Sequence in Peter’s absence.

Peter returned around dinner time. He and Paul went and picked up a veggie to go with the steaks Susan had. He chose well with green beans, and also got some really soft, big cookies for dessert. Well done. After dinner, you guessed it… more Sequence. Paul and I had caught up and now were leading the series. What an addicting game! Beware.

When we finally put down the board game, we made our way over to one of the other campsite’s fire. A kid by the name of Geome we had met earlier (a friend of one of the crew), was playing a guitar. He played and sang a John Mayer song, as well as just strummed some freestyle stuff. I had never heard of it, but he actually had a healthy scholarship at U.S.C for guitar. He had studied classical, as well as contemporary stuff, and was really talented and fun to listen to.

When Geome stopped playing, we returned to the Ceglarski fire. Most everyone was getting ready to go to bed, but Peter, Paul and I were still up. Peter again found it necessary to heat the entire campground so we relaxed at a reasonably safe distance from the blaze.

We would be heading back to the Ceglarski’s place the following day, and off to a Dodger’s game to see Hollywood Manny. We were looking forward to it, but we were also enjoying the moment as we had not had so much fun camping throughout the entire trip.

Life was good.

We awoke in the morning to Peter preparing his fluffy eggs. He was talked up to be sort of a big deal when it comes to scrambled eggs, and they did not disappoint. Somehow he makes perfectly fluffy, voluminous eggs without a hint of brown on them. He’s a sorcerer of the skillet.

After breakfast Paul and I decided to head for the beach. Zuma beach, a popular beach in Malibu, was a 5 miles ride down the road. There is a Starbucks there that apparently you are nearly guaranteed to see someone famous getting an absolutely essential latte, but it was on the wrong side of the street. We’d stop on the way back.

When we arrived, I hit something coming off the road into the parking lot, and popped a flat. It was official. After all this time behind, I had finally caught up to Paul. We each had 6 flats for the trip.

When we got on the beach, we were amazed out how full it was. We juggled the soccer ball for a while in hopes to attract some fellow ballers… beach soccer is fun. It was to no avail, so we went in the ocean. Paul didn’t really like his sunglasses, so he let me wear them. The waves were quite strong. So strong that one ripped the sunglasses off my face, and I never found them again. Sorry buddy. I managed to lose my and Paul’s sunglasses in the past few weeks. Oops.

We hung out for a while after the loss and tried to rekindle our friendship. After hours of pleading, we hugged it out, and were done with the beach. I called Peter since we were too far away to walk, and he gladly came and picked us up in his pickup truck. We didn’t stop at the Starbucks, I figured I would just ask Meghan who was there that day instead of WASTING my time.

We made it back to the campsite and shortly after, Shannon, Peter and Susan’s daughter, arrived with a car full of her friends. Poor Peter. They were a nice group of boisterous girls, I must say. We played a board game called Apples to Apples with them, which is actually much better when you know well the people with whom you are playing. It was fun nonetheless.

After that game, we played another game called Sequence with Peter and Susan. It’s sort of connect 4 with cards (and you have to connect 5). It’s a bit strategy and a bit fortune. Sequence also proved to be a fun game. We ended up playing for a couple hours, and by the time we were sick of it, it was dinner time. Susan made a plethora of cream chicken for the 10 or so mouths at the site. It was delicious.

After dinner Peter made another raging inferno that was flirting with the bounds of legality. As we were camping, there were no laundry facilities for us to clean our clothes. Although I had showered, I had run out of anything that was remotely clean. Parsa, one of Shannon’s friends, was willing to help out with some extra clothes that she had brought.

We had some drinks around the fire and entertained one another for a while. It somehow surfaced that Peter was especially good at bird calls, so we had to get it out of him. It was getting late, but as a seasoned camper, Peter knew well how to handle the park rangers should they show up. On a particularly loud crow caw  (I think his best), we actually were visited by the rangers. It was pretty funny that amongst all the teenagers and young adults, it was Peter who was the main source of the noisemaking. After he handled the rangers, we continued on through the night staying up late and joking around by the fire. Paul and I were the last ones standing, as the fire dwindled. Bed time.

Life was good.