Events, they’re... fading on me! I know that the next day I need to write about is the one on which we left for Santa Cruz, and yet... I’m not quite sure anymore what order things happened in. Who was in which car, what we did on the way there, what we did that morning, what interesting things might have been said on the way, or... well, I’m losing it all!
Must concentrate... must burn this permanent record in order to remind myself. Must remember things straight at least this once, or else... all is lost.
Okay, maybe it’s not that bad. But still, I don’t want to forget any of this! It’s not fair.
Day 11, Tuesday, 08/14/01
We actually managed to set out early for once, I think. Later than originally planned, but still early. Must’ve been... 9-10am? We had a few stops to make along the way to Santa Cruz, so we wanted to get moving around 8, but we had a .000 success rate on departure times, so this was good enough. I think it was Mike and myself riding with Shellie, Jennifer with Guerin, and Eric and Leslie with Jennie. Everyone else was busy. Most would be joining us tomorrow morning.
First stop to make was noire’s house to get boogie boards. We ended up eating lunch there, most of us at least, taking from a large pile of mini-pizzas that were put in front of us. Then we did the same from a similarly large pile of movies that Jennie got wide-eyed after noticing. Except for the microwaving and eating part, I mean. Jennie’s eyes went wide and she grabbed movie after movie to bring along. A few got watched, most didn’t, but that was probably understood from the start. Same reason I brought all that anime – all about selection. Not that those scary freaks didn’t finish nearly all of it anyway. Guess I underestimated their appetites.
Anyway, I think this was also when the Discworld books were grabbed (if I remember correctly, which I may not, the first trip we only grabbed the terrible movie versions) and brought along. The three that don’t have US releases yet. Not that I know anything about them except what I was told, but after reading through half of Pyramids in spare minutes during the remainder of the trip I’ll probably have to find out.
From there the next leg of our journey would carry us to “the” redwood forest. A state park which I think was called Roaring Camp. It was more like a tourist attraction than what I usually think of as a state park, mainly consisting of a train that goes around on tours for... well, for a whole lot more money than we were willing to pay, and of an information filled loop trail with a length of (dramatic music, thunder and lightning go here) .8 miles. We walked it backwards.
There were 15 stops along the way, and I believe all of them can be found in Tannen’s photo archive. The important one was definitely the famous #8 (of course... #8... yeah, sure.) which has the inside missing, and enough room for our whole group inside and then some. Not that Jennie would join us when we were all in there, instead arguing that we needed to clear out so other groups behind us could look around. For quite some time. There would have been room for them too, actually.
Space-time twisting effects stayed away, no doubt my fearsome aura of normality held them at bay, allowing us to complete the .8 mile loop without traveling much more than .9 miles. It was getting hot out by this point, though I’m not sure what time it might have been (my watch is still sitting downstairs with a dead battery – I just haven’t bothered with it yet) and we took a stop over by another outrageously expensive snack bar, where lots of people bought ice cream or ice cream related snacks. I refuse to give places like that business on principle. This one made it difficult, but I managed. This would be when we found out how much the train rides cost (I think it was at least $15 a person, though it might have been much higher. Really not sure.) and quickly decided to move on, because the next leg of the trip was the last one and would see us arriving in Santa Cruz.
Mikel’s house #3 is huge. Expensive and huge. The TV alone was taller than Jana. And it was a 16x9, so it was shorter than similar, less expensive, models might be. I think everybody’s jaw hit the floor when we walked in, and then sank through it when they hit the living room with that monstrosity in it. I, and I’m sure a few others, were very tempted to change our minds about going right to the beach. The ladies managed to drag us all along though, so once everybody changed to swimwear we waved goodbye to the hypnotic box of happiness and set out on foot.
We walked past a miniature park, one little swingset and a field of grass that wouldn’t have contained last night’s demi-soccer game thing, down a trail with a bunch of poison oak that we happily pointed out to Tannen, and also blackberries, which he and noire hung back a ways to do something with (did she actually get him to eat some? I never found out.) and finally to the most pleasant beach we would find on the whole trip. By a long, loooooong ways. And it wasn’t even that amazing. For one thing, there were no rocks the right size for stacking, just some small boulders a bit too big for us to move and a bit too small to lay down on.
Most of the freaks dove right in, but I hung back. I hate swimming with seaweed, and it was everywhere. Bleah. I ended up sinking myself about two thirds of the way to the knee in the wet sand though, such that I was about of a height with Jana, and joked with her that “I thought you said you left the axe at home.”
So while they swam for a while I mostly watched and took a few pictures with Tannen’s camera, though I also did a little bit of wishing I had my kite handy this year, as the winds were very high and I didn’t actually get to keep it airborne and show off my kite-flying skillz last year. Real kites have at least two strings, you know, otherwise it’s just a bit of cloth that flaps in the wind. After a while everyone came up on the beach to dry off and play in the sand. This is when Jennie got mermaided, Mori got shouldered cheerleader style, and I tried to track the footprints left by my shoes in the sand to the latest thieves. All in all I think we must have spent quite some time down there and had a pretty great time.
When we returned to the beach house everyone but me, due to their unfortunate situation of having sand in all sorts of unpleasant places, had to get hosed down. I waited inside and watched the extras on some of the Cowboy Bebop DVDs I had brought, and every time the first part of the intro theme would come on everyone would yell from the door “Don’t start it yet!”. I found it funny, at least.
When we were all inside though everyone decided to take showers anyway, Mikel even made me before I could use the furniture, and furthermore, some people took off to get dinner materials, so Bebop was delayed again (it was what I’d been told to display on the wall - I mean, the TV that covered most of it – first) and Discworld was put in instead. Man, that was terrible. They couldn’t even consistently keep everything the same size with respect to everything else *l*. In particular, this one characters eyebrows were distorting reality in a very disturbing fashion. On the plus side, though, the beach house was the first place we had stayed with showers that I didn’t have to duck under. This made me very happy.
Discworld stayed in until Jana and Jennie and... who else went shopping, anyway? Well, until they made it back, when Bebop went on at last. Jana said she wanted to see it but told us not to wait for her, so clearly we had to. You don’t tell people not to wait for you unless you want them to, after all.
Dinner was had while Bebop was watched, and it was good. Jennie cooked up pork chops for us, with pasta on the side (or for Jana the main course – actually, I may have only gotten some of this because she got full and dumped the rest on my plate. For that matter, I think noire kindly donated half a pork chop to me too. What nice people). After one disk of that I think the display was switched though. I have no clue what to anymore. I don’t think it was anything of mine, as the only other thing I remember watching that night was Macross Plus, and it was only noire and I who stayed up for the whole thing. Guerin was the only other one who tried, and he stumbled off to find a bed in the middle of it I think. It was late at that point, so something else must have come between.
This would be the night that we all talked to Rhoddy, too. I didn’t have too much to say, but that’s okay, because apparently a few other people did.
Around all that, though, time passed and it got dark and something else clearly happened in the middle, but after it everyone began splitting up and dropping off to sleep, the last of which was myself, after turning off the television and gathering up the mess of DVDs. What a day.
Day 12, Wednesday, 08/15/01
After all that, clearly, we deserved to be rudely
awoken at about nine in the morning. We who had thoughtlessly not been
up at the crack of dawn to welcome Cindra and Anna as they drove up. They
arrived at, I suppose, somewhere between 7:30 and 8, and waited on the
doorstep for an hour before coming up with a scheme to get inside. When
they finally got someone to let them in they were so bitter they decided
to wake up everyone else. Despite the fact that I was already awake when
they turned on... I’m not even sure what kind of machine it was. Blender
perhaps? It made loud motor-whirring noises. Despite the fact that I was
awake when they turned that on and I heard the conversation go something
like this... I was still quite annoyed.
“Don’t do that, you’ll wake them all up!”
Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness. This day
did not start off right.
We were planning to make it to “The Boardwalk”
this day, but not until Vel arrived too, which would be closer to noon.
So I think for breakfast we had coffee cake. To which I added a banana
and a cookie. Not the most balanced of meals, but okay. Then I think they
put in Cinderella. Vel arrived near the end, if I recall, and we set out
shortly. There might have been one more episode of Cowboy Bebop tagged
on the end there, because I remember we watched “Sympathy for the Devil”
and Vel decided she didn’t like the series. That could have been later
though, when we got back.
Driving to the Boardwalk, on the coast in Santa
Cruz, was interesting. Mikel, Vel, Tannen and I were in one car, Guerin
took noire, and Mori, Jana, Anna and Jennie rode with Cindra. And both
walkie-talkies ended up in the same vehicle – the only one that knew the
exact way. The scene went something like this...
Mikel: “Why don’t you call them and ask how far
behind they are?”
It was beautiful. I guess everyone else must have
known the way better than I thought at the time though, or else followed
perfectly, because we all made it just fine. After we showed everyone what
had happened I put both the devices back into Mikel’s car for later and
we walked the block or so remaining to the boardwalk. Which, as it turns
out, is a beachside carnival. I had no clue what to expect really until
we arrived. It was pretty much the usual though... three bucks for a rollercoaster
ride, or a scoop of icecream. $30 for unlimited rides, though at this point
I was running out of spending money so I stayed off. Stealth aside, I’m
still very much against roller coasters anyway.
About half the people bought ride tickets and
about half didn’t (funny how that works) and so we quickly decided to split
up. I had the brilliant idea at that point to split the walkie talkies,
the ones I had left back in the car, between the two groups. It was approved
among those who heard me say it, so I ended up getting Mikel’s keys from
Guerin and running back for them while the riders waited in a line and
the nonriders went through one of the shops. I then returned a few minutes
later to find the first group gone. Dropped off one of the radios (I’m
getting annoyed with typing walkie talkies, so from here on out they’re
radios *nod*) and took off with the other to find the riders.
I think I passed them while they were in line
for the Big Dipper, which is inside a building (I did not know this) so
I didn’t catch them until the second pass. At which point I was enlisted
to take photos and guard belongings while they were on “Chaos”, a silly
little ride that it literally took them about 15 minutes to start. While
I was waiting the non-riders got too bored and took off. And the riders,
upon finishing the ride, decided they wanted me to continue taking pictures,
so there I stayed. They went through the Big Dipper, the log ride, the
caveman adventure... and I stood outside and used the camera and got hungry.
I’m way too nice.
Actually, when they went on the caveman adventure,
since that was entirely enclosed, I stepped off to one side and spent a
buck on pinball at the arcade. I got three free games out of the first
quarter I tried, on an older table, and then got cocky and tried the Addams
Family table, getting beaten down mercilessly. I _used_ to be able to handle
it, but no longer. Ah well. It’s one of those incredibly hard and cool
ones, fond memories... that I’m not, apparently, good enough to duplicate
anymore *g*. Ah well.
They found me a little bit after that and we resumed,
hitting maybe one other ride and then the ferris wheel with those little
cages you can roll all upside down. That was the last one they did, I think.
From there we turned around and started making our way back from whence
we came (“The Boardwalk” is arranged in a strip going along with the coastline,
narrow and long) trying the radio at intervals until we picked up the other
freaks. They were on the beach, on the other side of a strip of water,
but don’t go in it because it’s contaminated. Great, the entire public
beach at this touristy beach carnival thing is contaminated. Big signs
that tell people not to go in the water. Behind which people are... playing
in the water. We have photographic proof. Crazy idiots...
So we walked around this little stream, which
turned out to be quite a long ways, and sat on the beach for a while, the
whole big group back together. Nobody said much of anything. The other
group seemed somehow exhausted. We were rather disappointed when we got
there too, at least I was. They said they had been forming a “human pyramid”
but all they meant was they were sitting in a circle leaning against each
other’s backs. A human pyramid is something else entirely, and much more
amusing to take pictures of.
At this point we sat around. Every few minutes
I mentioned how nice it would be to go find food. Just sort of to the air,
you know. So that eventually somebody else would figure out that I was
trying not to yell at everybody just because I hadn’t eaten anything since
a breakfast of coffee cake, banana and cookie (wow, am I _still_ on that
day? Heh...) and we might get moving. Then Tannen and I threw the beach
volleyball that Jennie had picked up somewhere while we were split up back
and forth over everybody else until they spat out the sand this had dropped
on them and declared they were ready to move.
We made some stops on the way out though. Vel
picked up some kind of dessert, I forget what she called it, at a stand
and ate it at a picnic table while most of us sat around some more (those
who weren’t asking for bits of it *g*). We all went by a candy store because
I wanted to get some saltwater taffy, and in the end I think most everybody
got some kind of dessert item. The shops bags and candy wrappers all said
“Established since 1902” and I found this very amusing. The way I see it,
anything established in 1903, or 2000 is “Established since 1902” Or maybe
it was 1918? No matter, shortly thereafter we finally took off to go find
dinner.
Which is when we, despite splitting the radios
up carefully this time, got separated and lost. Oops. For a while we drove
around the area near the boardwalk trying to figure out where to find each
other, and this was confused a bit more by the radios changing hands, in
both cars I believe. Or maybe just in mine when I snatched it away from
noire on the theory that guys can give better directions to other guys
(I believe it was Guerin on the other end at that time) and because when
I kept trying to insert comments it only got things confused more, so I
figured I had to redeem myself by getting everything worked out. Apparently
my coup succeeded because my voice sounds nice and clear over the radio.
When we finally found each other again (which
involved, at one point, the other two cars driving through an intersection
from side to side while we, the ones going the right way to get where we
were going, waited to go straight through it) we proceeded to a small Mexican
restaurant that wasn’t too much out of the way. Was it actually right along
the highway? I’m not sure. When I’m in the back seat I don’t pay that much
attention to where things actually are. Anyway, we were the majority of
the customers this place had. And we still got terrible service. I noticed
a lack of a certain line in the menu near softdrinks that usually informs
you that refills of such are free, and asked about it. Indeed, they charge
per glass. Most of us drank water. I ordered the cheese enchiladas and
was not disappointed at least, that was quite good. However, even our water
never got refilled, and nobody even came by while we were eating to see
how we were doing. Oh well, not everybody can be as enthusiastic as the
guy at the Outback, and I think after that we just started expecting it
*nod*.
Oh yes, somehow I also got dared into eating a
big spoonful of the salsa, which a few silly people sometimes called Mori
found hopelessly spicy. It wasn’t so bad... I announced as I could _feel_
the heat come out of my face almost instantly. Honestly though my favorite
chips are spicier, but we’ll get to that later...
Finished my little bag of “sour watermelon” candy
after dinner (which was neither particularly sour nor particularly watermelon-y),
shared with most everyone I think, and waited around. They had a nice backyard
at this restaurant, but all in all it just wasn’t too amazing a time, and
we all set out relatively quickly to make our way back at last to Mikel’s
House 3 (codenamed “the beach house”).
Given that Vel was vanishing permanently in the
morning I decided to put in Utena. And it didn’t come out again. Well,
it did, but that was to replace disk 1 with disk 2. Not everybody liked
it, but Vel and noire and myself stayed interested (who cares how many
times I’ve seen it, I just happen to like things better every time I see
them) and nobody dared to seriously interrupt us. Dk took my Jubei DVDs
into the other room and watched them on her laptop dubbed (I know subtitles
wouldn’t show up, but still... time would have been found in the main room
if you had wanted it to be later! *sigh* That series is just not funny
in English. No humor series is, but I’ve actually seen some of this, they
screw up _all_ the jokes!)
At about 1-2am we finished. Heh. Everyone was
already falling asleep, so I mostly skipped the movie. Just found a certain
scene that is amazingly cool and which i wanted to see on this nice big
TV and watched that, then pulled it out again and everybody crashed. Vel
took my previous spot on the couch, so I had to drag Mori over a foot or
two to get some space on the floor. He woke up halfway there, but was nice
enough to move the rest of the way of his own power before falling back
asleep instead of making me drag him the rest of the way. I stretched out
in the space thus created and fell quickly to sleep.
Notice how these posts are covering less time
in more words? I’m quite pleased at that myself. Just how much unimportant
detail can I remember? Well, here’s a clue for today. After we finished
playing Cranium that other night I forgot to mention a scene that occurred.
Guerin wrote down “the equation” and showed it to the rest of the guys.
The equation (which I had seen before) is as follows.
Time = Money
Women = Time * Money
Women = Money^2
And since money is the root of all evil...
Which brings us finally too...
It’s so clear! Logic in action. No females were
shown the paper on which this was written (though they guessed it later,
as one of them had heard that someone finally put this together and was
ready for it) because the game of keepaway it was involved in ended with
my jamming the paper into my mouth and not seeking a trashcan to get rid
of it (I might have just swallowed it, I know, and it sort of defeats the
purpose not to, but it was a bit too much) until the information contained
on it was thoroughly destroyed.
And that’s my randomly remembered story for the
time being. Hope this lightens up your September 11th, 2001, because most
of us need it. Until next time...
“So what, they deserve to be woken up anyway.” *turns on loud somethingmachine*
Jarihn: “Okay.” *pulls out walkie talkie and
relays message*
Mikel: *eyes widen* “Why did that come out of the walkie talkie I haven’t handed you yet?”
Everyone: “Uhoh.” *moment of silence* *laughter*
This one is a pretty well known cliche so okay...
Alright, I’ll buy that... (*g*)
This follows, of course...
Money^2 = Evil
Women = Evil
Jarihn