Part 1: Mini Rides Again - The Cali Coast Road Trip

There are a lot of people with whom I would rather eat a bag of kitty litter than spend a week in a car, but Sandie’s far from one of them. Initially, we figured we should do something awesome over winter break, since both of our families live at an inconvenient distance, and the standard “go home for the holidays” was less than wholly appealing. We were going to wait until last minute and then find a room on a cruise or find flights to somewhere cool. But sometimes, the best of plans are drunken ideas that people take a little too far. And so, after debating and planning and replanning, we settled on the scenic drive up and down Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.

[AUTHOR NOTE: Photos used below, unless otherwise noted, were the work of myself and Sandie]

Day 1: Friday December 27th, 2013 - Mountain View to Yucca Valley; 491 miles

We started out bright and early in the morning after a quick pow-wow to print out some directions and grab some breakfast and free snacks. The best thing about Day 1 of our journey was that we were sufficiently pumped that the radio didn't need to come on. We filled the car with sounds of unbridled excitement.

First stop was gas and food in Bakersfield, CA.

That popcorn IS THE SHIT. 

As documented in previous adventures, Bakersfield doesn't have a whole lot going on. It's a quiet place surrounded by quiet farmlands and the police officers don't really have a lot going on, so they'd rather spend their time harassing innocent drivers. 

The sign said there was a detour, so we maneuvered assuming that the sign was telling the truth. We've no reason to be skeptical. But about 200 yards before the overpass that would take us to the on-ramp, it became obvious that the sign was incorrect documentation, and we would be headed horribly in the wrong direction if we continued to follow the detour. So we signaled and (legally) started moving over to our on-ramp, and the police officer decided to nearly hit us, and then pull us over. 

He crankily approached the car and I pulled out my license in shame. 

"Do you have any idea where you're going?!?!"

"Actually.... no...."

We made it away, ticket-free, and continued heading South. Originally, our first touring stop was going to be the famed Bottletree Ranch (see below). However, due to poor planning, by the time we were nearby Bottletree Ranch, we were also in the middle of the Mojave desert after dark, and we didn't know where we were sleeping that night. I'm going back to see it one of these days, because it's cool as hell. 

We found a place to stay in Yucca Valley, California right outside of Joshua Tree National park. We internetted for a bit and then hit the sack. 

Day 2: Saturday December 28th, 2013 - Yucca Valley to Chula Vista; 269 miles

Yucca Valley is a lovely little small hippie town outside of Joshua Tree National Park, providing cheap accommodations and quirky local business to tourists coming to check out the park. We weren't super-hungry, so in lieu of breakfast, we opted for coffee and snacks with which to start our day.

We found local businesses and a nifty farmer's market that sold vegetables and the hippie-type jewelry made by local artisans that moms tend to like.

And then we headed over to Joshua Tree National Park, which was unbelievably gorgeous.

And after some goofing around in Joshua Tree, we headed back through Yucca to head down to San Diego, and we were at the peak of our Kanye West-ing.

Our trip had 2 recurring themes: Recreating Moments from Kanye West's 'Bound 2' music video (Mildly NSFW), and avoiding Jesus. Kanye's highly criticized and hugely awkward music video involves lots of long, traveling scenes of him engaged in coitus while riding a motorcycle through a series of gorgeous landscapes. Since we were also driving through a series of equally gorgeous landscape shots, it made perfect sense to belt "Uh huh, honey!!" while air-humping the steering wheel at red lights. We earned a series of very strange looks from strangers at intersections, but the beauty of a road trip is that you don't usually know anyone else, and you won't see most of the people that you meet again. We'll discuss Jesus avoidance later.

The second stop on our day at at Shield's Date Gardens, a historic date palm orchard and tourist trap outside of Coachella Valley. Delightfully enough, for a significant portion of the drive between Joshua Tree and Indio, the radio selection was limited to NPR and 80's power ballads. I was so happy. But that happiness was utterly shat upon at the Date Gardens.

Having skipped breakfast, and refusing all proper meals until afternoon, we showed up to this crazy place INSANELY HUNGRY. There's a small countertop where you can order a milkshake mixed with sugared date crystals, and there's a "kitschy" type souvenir shop, but we forewent these experiences and descended upon the countertop with all the free samples. And there a million fucking varieties of dates. And they all taste subtly different. And we tasted them all. Then, we stopped into their mini-theater for their documentary about their operation:

And then we got more free samples of dates! But something started to happen. About halfway through free date #11... I got this sinking feeling. A really mild wave of nausea. This sickly-sweet dry mouth feeling. I was standing in line to purchase a souvenir box of dates, and I started swapping down for smaller and smaller size boxes. First, the 50-pack. Then the 30-pack. Then the 15-pack. Finally, I bought the mini-box of 9 dates. The idea of eating any more dates was physically repulsive. It continues to be physically repulsive. Sandie felt it too. 

As we drove on to our next location, the sugar crash continued. The nausea and crankiness continued to dominate the car, and we grasped desperately for any snacks that had flavors other than sweet. We craved salty. We craved fatty. But we were in the middle of fucking nowhere and didn't know where we can stop for food that wouldn't aggressively rape our blood glucose levels. The world sucked. The sunlight was teasing us about the enjoyment we could be experiencing during this drive had we even a smidgen of self-control. We were nauseated and cranky. We tried to turn our lives around by belting out 80's power ballads. It didn't work. But we were close enough to our next stop that proper, non-date eating didn't happen.

[AUTHOR NOTE: I STILL FUCKING HATE DATES AND WILL REFUSE TO EAT THEM FOREVER. KEEP THAT SHIT AWAY FROM ME. DATES WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE.]

We drove down around the Salton Sea and started noticing some interesting cultural tendencies around the area. Radio became increasingly dominated with "experimental soundscapes" and Christian worship-music. There was a dude walking through the desert beside the road dragging a cross. But Salvation Mountain was worth the weirdness, and well-exemplified the vibe of the area. 

Salvation Mountain is a painted mountain built out of adobe, straw, and what I'm guessing is all the paint in the surrounding area. It's a folk-art installation by Leonard Knight that's currently being maintained by volunteers since Leonard Knight ended up suffering from old-age dementia, likely driven from an original desire to paint a mountain. Although I'm far from the religious type, the insane amount of passion and dedication devoted to a project of that magnitude for any cause was inspiring. 

The parking lot featured a collection of painted boats, painted cars, and dust. 

Tourists are welcomed to follow a yellow-painted path up to the top of the mountain, where you can look out and see miles and miles of dust and desert and sky.

There's a small side alcove built out of a tree that's long passed on with a million nooks and crannies and every single one of them was painted with loving care. 

(I was trying really hard to look cool)

The next stop nearby was Slab City/East Jesus, which is an abandoned WWII Marine barracks that, in 1965, started to be inhabited by people seeking something a little different, and made roots in campers and old school buses and tents. Slab City is the residency, and East Jesus is the nearby art colony. It was cool, but kind of jarring to drive around. The elaborately decorated RVs were people's homes, and not exhibits in the museum. Photographing them felt weird. But for visual reference (photos not my own):

The tree of souls was particularly cool:

The overwhelming feeling of middle-class guilt and hunger was soon overwhelming, and we needed to make way towards our evening destination. Following our journey through this particularly strange part of the California desert, it was time to make our way to the delightful town of Chula Vista, the latin-dominated southern edge of San Diego. Our driving route was amazingly close to the Mexican border, and having not fed following our horrifying date-debacle, we made the brilliant decision to stop for Mexican food in some middle-of-nowhere town, and DAMN! That salty, fatty Mexican food tasted better than anything had tasted in awhile. We went through so many tortilla chips that our waiter was properly giving us funny looks. But the saltiness of the food, and the fattiness of the fried things and guacamole completely revived our desert-weary souls, and we quickly went from forlorn and cranky to more upbeat and motivated. I spent a few brief moments in the parking lot following our meal to just lose my shit and flail my arms about because I genuinely just felt so much better about life… until a family in a minivan pulled up beside us to make me feel awkward about my excitement. 

The morals of the story, of course: 

1. Dates are evil.
2. Burritos can solve many of the world’s problems, my friends. Burritos can solve it all. 

The radio through the remainder of the day slowly  changed from Christian music and mariachi back into more standard radio selections, the road for the remainder of the day changed from desert highway to rocky two-ways passing through mountains, the sky for the remainder of the day changed from cloudy blues to black. The most notable thing from our ride down to San Diego was that we were stopped by U.S. Border Patrol, which was exciting in that every day of our road trip, we were stopped by U.S. law enforcement officials. Felt SO badass. They’re trying to catch us riding dirty. But the only dirty riding we were up to were copious recreations of Kim&Kanye. 

We rolled into Chula Vista to stay at the sketchiest of sketchy hotels, it was dirty; the previous occupants of the room had left some socks behind; the kids upstairs were drinking 40’s. We made the best of it by watching a documentary about a man getting murdered in a similarly sketchy motel. The motel had no Wifi, but the strip club next door sure did! We took a few minutes to think through our plan for the remainder of the evening and figured out some things to check out in San Diego the next day. In an effort to be cool and make cool friends, we went out. After seeking out libations and working on our smoke rings, we eventually settled into a state of mellow “fuckit”. The obvious thing to do in a town where no one knows you is karaoke. While Sandie kittenishly worked her way through a love song, I got down with the awkwardest of karaoke song selections. We made a friend named Daniel. Daniel was very inebriated and very much wanted to sing duets with us. He gave us a business card and we hit him up on Instagram (I'm MiniAdrienne on there too!), but weirdly enough, he didn’t get back to us. 

Jerk.

I'd Typically Rather Watch TV and Eat Oreos

So here’s the thing, and yes, it probably makes me a bad person: whenever I’m hanging out with someone that I don’t like, I’ll typically be spending the time faking enthusiasm while concurrently  thinking about all the things I’d rather be doing. 

For example: 

1. I’d rather be cleaning up after a herd of elephants that all recently aggressively ate at Chipotle. 
2. I’d rather be using poison ivy as toilet paper. 
3. I’d rather be that person eating a tuna fish sandwich on an airplane. 

Which, in general, means that on any given night, I’d rather be hanging out with people that I know I like instead of spending a bunch of dollars to (basically) spend time with strangers and have awkward, stifled conversations about the weather and where I’m from. But I keep being told that I should date more and eventually procreate so that I can birth a new generation of similarly misanthropic progeny. Not a desirable end goal, but I saw the value in having arm candy for holiday party season.

Marketing Scumbag

I met Marketing Scumbag at one of the gyms on campus where he made some kind of half-assed comments about working out and we started a conversation. He was tall, cute, had maybe 10+ years on me, but I didn’t mind - he was nice enough. About a week later he asked if I wanted to join him at a First Night party at a gallery. I did my part to look awesome (black lipstick can be glam and awesome, I don’t care what you say). He was really complimentary, but while we were out he didn’t actually talk to me. He introduced me to friends, put his hand on my back while talking to people he knew… but didn’t try to get to know me, and the strange person that I am. And his introductions fell into a very strange cadence: “Hi, [Name], how are you doing? I’m fantastic! This is Adrienne, she’s 24 and works at Google”. Um. Okay. I was unaware that who I am is solely encapsulated with my age and my job, but I guess my personality and interests don’t really matter. When I realized I’d rather be re-watching the scene of Mufasa dying in the Lion King, I politely excused myself and explored the party, whereupon I met…

Fat Channing Tatum

My kryptonite is a man in a well-tailored suit. It’s tasteful, elegant, and feeds perfectly into a series of fantasies in which in a gorgeously suited young Sean Connery/Daniel Craig enters my evil lair and I get to look up and kittenishly ask, “Yes, Mr. Bond?”. And this guy’s suit was perfect. We started e-mailing and he asked me out for coffee. When I met him for coffee… he wasn’t what I remembered. I remembered stylish and mysterious. The guy I met for coffee was not those things. And I wouldn’t have minded, but all he had to talk about was his modeling career (yeah… no) and his acting career (once again… no). I’d rather be licking the floor of a sports bar at 9pm on Superbowl Sunday. 

Other Adrienne

Met a guy named Adrian. We both flipped out because we had the same name. Then he started sending really awkward text messages with pictures of him shirtless and asking me what kinds of massage oils I tend to prefer. I’d rather be playing leapfrog with a unicorn. 

Giant Child

When I moved to the bay area, plenty of people were kind enough to tell me about their friends in the area, and one of them happened to be a coworker, but on a different team. We met for dinner one night on campus, and he asked me on a date. I shower up at his apartment exactly when he asked me to, and  he was getting going strong on a single-player Resident Evil game, and he spent 2 hours insisting he was “almost done” and we’d go out and do something after he got to a good checkpoint. To be perfectly honest, this is an activity I’m totally fine with… if I’ve known you for awhile and we weren’t going to get dinner and I wasn’t hangry. But I spent 2 hours thinking, "I’d rather be rubbing butter all over Carrot Top’s creepy ginger chest hair”.

Snobby Hipster

Out one night in downtown SF, I took to Twitter to look for a cocktail recommendation at a bar I hadn’t hit before. The person with whom I tweeted ended up being there, and bought me the cocktail he most recommended. He was cool, read aggressively and was deeply into NPR and his vinyl collection. A typography enthusiast, he worked at Adobe and described himself a “Finnish Finn from Finland” Oh yes ladies and gents… we had ourselves a hipster. I was going to be out again the next week with some friends to celebrate a birthday, and I asked him along. He was a great dinner date, and all of my friends liked him enough, but when he asked me back to his place, the thought of putting my hands anywhere on him made me realize… I’d rather brush my teeth while drinking orange juice. Going out with someone nice is always… nice. But I’m young and foolish and I’d rather spend time with someone that makes me smile like a geek and giggle awkwardly and that I kind of want to jump 24/7.

There were others, with some really non-notable stories. One was generally nice and agreeable but lived about 2 hours away. One worked for a news station and their only consistent free time included the hours between 8am and 1pm. One seemed to be allergic to shirts. In general, I’d rather be giving Joseph Stalin a foot job than continuing to go out with random people.

As of now, let’s just say that I’m not quite at the level of adopting cats, learning to knit and drinking alone. 

Other fun updates:

• The torn ligament in my foot is healing slowly, I almost have a normal gait, and I’m maybe a month away from running again. 
• Winter holiday party season was AWESOME. Watching your coworkers get drunk is really entertaining. 
• Spent Thanksgiving with family in Marin and Christmas Eve with friends.
• My friend Greg is moving to California, and his flight comes in tonight around 2am, so I’m going to go to bed so that I can get in a few hours of shuteye before I pick him up from his redeye. 
• More to follow! I have a new Adventure to share, and it was beautiful. 

Autumn Tales from my $200 Ikea Futon

Autumn smells different out here. Different in a way that I can't quite wrap my mind around. Like sun-toasted pine needles and dew, smells that I usually think of in terms of summer and spring. In the humid Midwest, summer comes along and the world lights up in bold shades of green grass and leaves shimmering silver in the sun's rays. When the heat breaks with the day all of the greenery and life and heat bubbles in my veins and I get restless and I get reckless. It carelessly follows that summers are for abandon: parties and concerts and festivals and spending the days drinking and the nights dancing and sweaty, sloppy passion in plenty of places where proper people don't get sweaty, sloppy, or passionate. Then, like clockwork, the last night of summer comes and there's a chill in the air that you can distinctly smell - the humidity cooling and condensing on the still-green leaves instead of hanging heavy in the air. This poignant night always acted like the period at the end of a long, rambling sentence and put to an end a season of debauched behavior. It's always the first night in a long time when I want to protect myself against the chill in a blanket instead of just sleeping in some scraps of cotton. It's the first night in a long time when I want a cup of tea and a book instead of a beer and company. My feet are always tired. And this night shifts my behavior back to fall - the mundane of errands and work and nights watching movies and lacking the energy or desire to go out and party like my summer self.

But that didn't happen here. 

Summer here just smelled like death - dried-out, dead plants in the baking sun and dust. Grass died instead of glowed in shades of green and I think because the season was so far from what I was expecting, I didn't live it the way I usually do, the way I wanted to, the way that satisfies my inner demon and quiets my mind from destructive action until the next summer. I spent a majority of my time behaving as a responsible adult. 

Clearly, this is not acceptable. Little did I know that those same Midwestern summer smells would return in Pacific autumn and relight my desire for a little more of everything. And the strange thing is that fall has nearly passed and all of these cravings and wanderlust don't seem to be going anywhere. 

So as I sit here on my newly assembled Ikea couch sipping a glass of wine that was bottled within 100 miles, let me tell some tales. 

I've been going out partying a lot more. A lot more drinking and a lot more dancing. And these things make me happy. My first reminder that these things are superfun came with a rather innocent night out with some lovely ladies:

Shortly after, it was time for a team offsite around the mountains and clear blue waters of the southern region of Lake Tahoe, close to where the California border merges into Nevada.

We were packing for a large crew.... but most of the car was filled with beer and wine and liquor. 

It is beautiful. I'd love to go back under similar context.

Outside of one aggressive afternoon of uphill running (across state lines!!) in preparation for one particular upcoming 30K, I spent a majority of that trip drinking in the hot tub with teammates. At night it was particularly special. You're so far from city life and light pollution that when you turn all the lights out, you can soak in the warm waters and just see stars for days in the cloudless, pitch-black sky - the stars even reflected in the calm waters of the lake. A perfectly romantic setting for getting drunk and discussing things like algorithm design and the ramifications of false-positives in classifiers. Sexy, huh? Nerds will be nerds, and I am a nerd.

While we were driving back, we happened upon what looked like a brushfire. Very striking.

 
After returning, there was more dancing to be done. This time, of the garba and dandiya varieties in celebration of Navratri, a Hindu festival in celebration of Durga (Wikipedia, kids). But it wasn't a super-religious celebration, but rather a giant dance party that I had the delight of attending with some (once again) stunningly sexy friends. 

Come to think of it, I really need to get that dress dry-cleaned. 

Photo cred on this one goes to John & G.

Shortly after, it was on to Tucson, Arizona for some fun with the bro and his girlfriend, Wesley.

My nephew-puppy, Simon, is getting far too large and far too cute. He still fancies himself a lapdog, and this time, we had no disagreements on whether my shoes constituted as an appropriate dietary option.

Best burger place EVER. More burger places need to put hot sauce on tater tots. Please. Just let me eat that sheer genius daily and be fat.

Beside the puppy and the chow, we went to the haunted house at Old Tucson studios - an old Western village set up with 3+ haunted houses and plenty of Halloween-themed entertainment. We walked a 5k for AIDS. We also went to Tucson Eat Yourself... er... Meet Yourself, a cultural festival that in theory featured performances from different music and dance groups, but in my mind it featured shaved ice and falafel. And my brother threw a party! I made friends with some of his friends. [If you're reading this, Hi Brad!!!]

We got into some other weirdness. 'Tis expected. My family are brilliant, but we're all a little out there.

Feeding the desire to check out new things, I figured it was time to check out some of the weirder offerings at my workplace, did some exploring of teh Googs with my friend Sandie and discovered the half-pipe:

Shortly after, I let free my inner graceful fairy...

But Sandie made it look cute. 

Additional adventures came and went, but soon it was Halloween! Continuing to feed my need to shake things up, I wore this:

Sure, the whole "girls in slutty costumes" thing is tired and overdone. But not for me. A majority of my previous costume decisions were rather modest.  I had fun, which was the point, and breaking out of my usual tee-shirt-and-jeans and showing off the fact that I work out up to 2 hours every day felt kinda good. I have since come to the conclusion that sometimes, wearing less clothing is good for your social life and good for your soul. I'm not about to break out this outfit in the workplace, and there's no way in hell I have the patience to regularly bother with that much makeup, but if, on an appropriate occasion, I ever feel the need to bust into "hot girl" mode, it's a valid choice, and it's all in good fun. On this occasion, a packed Heaven or Hell themed party at a nightclub was a valid place to wear something so revealing.

During this time, I had the delight of meeting some new friends from the Sydney, AUS office and in keeping with my lust for fun, they taught me something very important about life: any day worth having is worth ending with a drink in the hot tub (except they call it a "spa", which I can't quite get used to). We went up to Sonoma!

Luke makes that face a lot. 

And of course, I insisted on stopping in Sausalito for that killer view of the bay.All the buildings in the distance are San Francisco. From so far away, you can't see the homeless people.

 

They're back in the land down under, eating Vegemite and riding kangaroos to work or something like that. But no time to miss them... Steve came for a short visit!

At Rocket Fizz in Palo Alto. Seeing him made me seriously miss UR/City of Rochester chums. I'm so impressed that we've all slowly become real adults pursuing realistic dreams or careers. Those jam nights in Sue B. are feeling awfully far away, and I feel so far divorced from that part of my life. Sure, I ran away to the West coast, most of them stayed East/Beast coast, but as a whole, I think I'm a much different person that I was then. Of course, I can't really see it clearly, because I'm me. Nostalgia. Something existential. Fuck it. Wine. Anyway, the point is that Steve Eckenrode is a fantastic human being, and if you can convince him to visit your town, I highly recommend it.

Alina was also in  town to visit me, and I'm so glad that I got to spend quality time with this girl. We became friends waaaaaaayyyy back in high school in Solon when we were both members of the prestigious National Forensics League (SPEECH TEAM). Then, we ended up at the University of Rochester. She's family. It's been... like 7 years? We explored downtown San Francisco, and then she shoved me toward adulthood by getting me into an Ikea to buy the beautiful, beautiful couch I am currently seated upon. Alina - my ass applauds you!

But her travels led her to the capitol of our country, and after constructing all of my fancy new furniture, I shoved some time toward philanthropy and threw a quick fundraiser for MOVEMBER!!! Support me HERE (but you don't have to). Mostly, not being a selfish brat all the time occasionally feels good in the soul. Not as good as being nearly naked in public, but pleasure of a higher quality. I prepared assorted confections and sold them to folks in my department. Things went well!

I was reminded that I'm really good at chocolate. Even when swapping my old chocolate recipes for new vegan ingredients, I can still get a perfectly creamy consistency and lovely appearance. 

Next time I'm PMSing, I am going to stare at these pictures and drool and wish. 

They sold brilliantly in support of men's health. Ladies represent!! A lot of my coworkers are now growing a series of stunningly awkward Movember facial hair patterns. I'm having difficulty taking some of them seriously, and I keep bursting out laughing in meetings at inappropriate times because of it.

The weekend following this fundraiser came race day! I had assiduously prepared for it in exercise patterns, sleep patterns, and nutritional patterns. I went a full week without alcohol in preparation for this race, and enjoyed a delightful 10pm bedtime like an old fart (actually, not going to lie, getting that much sleep felt amazing).

Here's the elevation chart:

The 30K course has been nationally ranked as a fairly difficult course, so I knew what I was getting into. It was a cool morning on Stinson beach, sitting at the base of Mt. Tamalpais and Muir Woods.

 But here's a more precise breakdown:

Miles 1-3: "We're just getting started! I'm so excited!" The continuous uphill and stairs through the winding woods up the mountain still had some kitsch and shine. 

Miles 3-9: "Uphill climbs are getting old REAL fast. Ugh. Are we there yet?"

Mile 9-10: "THE GROUND IS FLAT. Ooh. Redwoods. Neat."

On these flatlands and downhills, I was quickly able to fall into a pace that reminded me that running is something I'm not bad at. I've trained for months. I might not be a fast runner, but I can run for a really long period of time.

Mile 10-12: "Downhills and flatlands and the few hills are small and doable! Maybe I can finish! If this is the worst I'm going to feel, I can make it. It's worth the bragging rights."

Mile 12-16: "Uphill. Steep uphill. I hate the world. Running is stupid. Why did I ever agree to this? What the fuck was I thinking? I could still be sleeping. Or eating breakfast. I'm dying. Why would I do this to myself? This IS MISERY."

During the miles of trudging and dragging my ass uphill I was reminded of something my Dad used to say to me when things were really shit: "You are made of tougher stuff". I don't know when my desire to prove that became an obsession, but I'm glad that it manifested itself in athletics instead of like... snake-charming or BDSM. I'm not sick, I'm not a victim, and I'm not powerless, and in every painful, misery-inducing step up that god-forsaken mountain, I fucking proved it.

Mile 16: "So this is it. This is the farthest I've ever run. Might as well finish. Otherwise it's just like bad sex."

Mile 16-18: "SPRINT DOWNHILL, WE'RE NEARLY DONE!!!"

Mile 18-18.7: "I CAN'T UNDERSTAND THESE MARKINGS, WHERE DOES THE RACE FINISH? SO CONFUSED!!! LET ME BE FINISHED!!"

 

18.7 miles:

I sprinted through the finish line and immediately needed to not be standing. 

But there was celebrating to do (photos courtesy of my awesome Aunt Margaret)

I asked around, but there was no beer with which to rehydrate. Settled on some sugary drink and have since spent the week chugging water and ORT (Oral re-hydration therapy) so that my body will go back to being a body and not a pained and creaky skeleton. For the night after the race and the whole next day, I swear, I was so sore that any number of insanely attractive athletes, actors, or musicians could have offered me sexual favors and I would have turned them down because bending over to remove my pants would have been far too taxing.

(The tee shirt and mug you get for finishing)

But there was one very important place I wanted to finish up my celebrating before I went home to die, fall asleep in the bathtub, and eat the world...

It was a really positive experience, and I am firmly convinced that if I can run 18.7 miles/30K up a mountain, 26.2 miles/40K/a marathon is going to be rather easy. So my athletic future is as follows: taking some time off of serious distance running to re-grow the skin on the bottoms of my feet and I'm going to explore some other endeavors. Will be substitute playing on a low-key soccer team. Might spend some time determining if I have any real talent for dancing, or if I just get really drunk and think I can shake it like Beyonce. I also plan on spending some time picking up heavy things and putting them down. And then next year, as time and budget allows, I'm planning on a marathon. Maybe more than one. Currently looking at races in Rochester, NYC, Cleveland, San Francisco, DC, and hell... I'd go international. If anyone reading this (I don't know why you'd bother, but hell if we got this far, I owe you one) wants me to come and run in your city, just let me know. All I require are bagels.

For now, that's all I got. I'm still sniffing the California air and smelling those same summery smells that leave me feeling restless, so I can promise that my next slew of adventures will come soon. I'd promise to write sooner, but it's hard to sit down and chronicle life when you're busy living. Oh god, that sounds so pretentious. I'm sorry. I'm not cool, I've never been cool, and I can't fake it.