Moving to Manhattan Beach most definitely took my California experience to the next level but for the first couple months I lived here I couldn't take full advantage of it because I was always at work or out of town. The three day work week is one of the best parts of being a nurse, but instead of lounging about for the four days a week I'm off work, I kept going out of town (
skiing,
Anna's Wedding,
Kacy's bachelorette) which meant that just about every day I was in California I was stuck inside the
CTICU. This did not leave much time for exploring my new little town and I was beginning to second guess my decision to quadruple my commute time to work... and then Cinco de Mayo happened. I was actually working that day (big surprise) but I had a TERRIBLE day so on my way home I decided that I would stop at the first Manhattan Beach bar I saw for a quick, tequila laden, nightcap. Since I was on my way home from the hospital I was still in my scrubs and before I even made it into the bar a guy comes running across the street to tell me that he is a nurse at UCLA too (in a loud, drunken, what-are-the odds tone of voice) and although at this point all I want is a shot and a corona I did realize that this could be my potential first new Manhattan beach friend (3 months in, pathetic I know) so we proceed with the "what floor do you work on? do you know so-and-so?" game and it turns out that this guy actually works with one of Ashley's roommates so we exchanged numbers and made plans to meet up again when I was not coming off of 12 hours at the hospital. About a week later he invites me to a party at his new apartment so I walk over (yes, we live about two blocks from each other) 12-pack in hand trying not to think about how awkward it could be to go to show up at some guy's house who I have me for less than five minutes, I walk out onto their deck and I see this:
Needless to say I was instantly hooked, any thought of awkwardness evaporated and they haven't been able to get rid of me since :) The guy I met at the bar on Cinco de Mayo is named Timmy (he works with Ashley's roommate Kim) and he has four roommates in the apartment with the view: Lauren, Gaynor, Dan and Chuck. Yesterday Dan, Chuck and Lauren (the other two roomies were out of town) hosted an
amazing Fourth of July party. After a morning spent playing volleyball and bodysurfing, we amassed back at their apartment for a BBQ and some drinking games. This is a picture of Dan prepping for a game of beer pong against me and Chuck:
I want you to take notice of the pot in the middle of the table. The boys were not satisfied with the winner getting bragging rights, they also decided that the loser would receive the equivalent of a public stoning. So after a valiant effort:
Chuck and I found ourselves downstairs:
Looking back up at this angry mob:
Now the rules were that the two people on the winning team got to throw one water balloon each at the two people on the losing team (standing on the numbers 14 and 50 spray painted on the sidewalk below, hence the name of the post). If one of us moved to avoid being hit then we would be subjected to water balloons thrown by the whole crowd. So they threw and Chuck got hit (notice the balloon shrapnel on his shoulder) but Dan missed me!
That is my story and I am sticking to it, and I would to like to submit the above photo as evidence, you can see where the cement is dry in the outline of my right foot - because I DIDN'T MOVE. Unfortunately, Dan did not agree and so as to avoid a shower of balloons I agreed to let him have one more shot, hey he missed once, he
could miss again:
I had no such luck.
Our first stop was the General Sherman Tree which is officially the biggest living thing on Earth! It is hard to see the perspective because we weren't allowed to get up close to the trunk but we hiked through the grove of giant sequoias surrounding it and got a few more pictures to give you a better idea:
Before we could leave the park, we had to investigate some steam we had seen coming out from under the hood of the car. Chuck and I had seen the steam upon arrival but were too excited to check it out right away. It turned out that the coolant container had cracked on the drive up, but it was quickly (and successfully) patched with some hot pink duct tape - a remedy that got us through the next three days and all the way back to LA :)
While planning the trip, we decided that lugging all of our food and belongings on our backs through bear country did not sound like fun so we left the park to check into our cabin! It was pretty rustic (no internet or TV and solar power only) but worked out very well, my favorite part was that we had our very own swimming hole which, in my haste to get to, I forgot to take pictures of. The water was beautiful and I'm sure we would have visited it many more times if not for the rattlesnake that we met on the trail coming back to our cabin.
Tuesday morning, on the recommendation of the owners of our cabin, we drove to a different part of the park called Mineral King, where we set off on a seven mile hike to Eagle Lake. We had slept in and underestimated the drive (we went slow because we were nervous about the coolant situation) so we didn't get started until about 12:30 but we spent the next five hours on the prettiest trail I have ever seen. It was a hard hike but I think you'll agree from the pictures that it was definitely worth it.
We left the cabin Wednesday morning and started the journey home. This was Chuck's half of the trip to plan, he suggested that instead of going straight back, we should take our time and stop at some wineries along the way. We made it to three while driving through Paso Robles the first day before stopping at a bed and breakfast in a very cool town called San Luis Obispo (SLO) for the night. Thursday morning, after doing a bit more exploring in SLO we stopped at three more wineries on our way to Santa Barbara where we met up with our friend Pam and her roommate Aaron for two more wineries (I was pretty saturated by this point), a couple games of beach volleyball and dinner before heading back to LA.
