SoCal Brah

My wipeout boo-boos.

San Diego is the only place I have ever been to in California, so it's ironic that this is the first place we stopped at in this great state. Last time I was here, we were visiting my mom's friend, Judy, from nursing school and that was 12 years ago... it's good to be back!! In fact, we stayed with our friends, Avery and Olivia, whose apartment was just minutes away from Judy's. Small world! Our first night was spent playing Spanish and Cards Against Humanity. We skated down to a bar called Tiny's and proceeded to get way too drunk. On the way there, I took the worst spill of my entire life after cruising down a hill, drunk, and hitting a patch of gravel. I had road rash over the ENTIRE right side of my body... Ouch. Needless to say, it wasn't that great of a night for me. I will say that the beer at this bar was pretty decently priced and they had pool tables, so it turned out to be a nice little spot.

Robb Field Skatepark

I spy Avery and Kyle up on those cliffs!

Even though the next morning, I wasn't feeling too hot we still had a full day. We got burritos at this place called Roberto's, which is definitely good hangover food. The one Kyle got was called a California Burrito, which had fries in it! Apparently, it's a thing out here, hence the name "California Burrito," because I saw it at a few other places. We spent some time at the Robb Field Skatepark. Robb Field is a really nice park with not only a skatepark, but also picnic tables, tons of tennis courts, and fields large enough to play soccer in or just sunbathe. Olivia and I read while the boys skated. I will say there aren't a lot of trees good for slack lining, unless you have a really LONG slack line. We hooked it up to a concrete picnic table and a tree, but it started moving the table. It worked for the time being. After we hung out there for a bit, we met up with another friend, JV, and went to this amazing beach called Black's Beach. We parked in some residential area and hiked down an amazing trail, which I believe is called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This is probably by far the coolest beach I have ever been on. I've never seen cliffs surrounding the ocean quite like that before. The hike down was equally as incredible where we followed worn footsteps through the hills, which appeared to be made of tightly packed sand. There were times on the trail where you felt like you were going to fall into the small canyon dividing the trail that was formed by a stream of some sort. There were places on the trail that were like sand slot canyons where you'd have to raise your arms and twist your body to fit between the tall, sandy walls. There was a little gorge where someone had placed a plank to balance-beam across to the other side. On the last part, there was a rope, attached probably years ago, to help get down a steep section. It made me feel like I was in Hawaii or someplace like that! The boys surfed until almost sunset and then we headed back to OB to try and catch the sunset at the cliffs, but we were a little too late thanks to the traffic. We decided to go check out this Grateful Dead cover band, Electric Waistband, at a bar called Winston's.

This is the really narrow part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Jumping off Sunset Cliffs.

Memorial Skatepark

At Avery's apartment every morning, we had a natural alarm clock--- screeching parrots. Parrots are not native to San Diego but there is a rumor that a pet shop had a bunch escape and now they have taken over! The parrots got us up in time to go jump off Sunset Cliffs, by the time we skated over there we thought we missed high tide, but the water was plenty high, so we all jumped in. I found some sea glass near the cliffs, more green than I usually find on the East coast. Afterwards, Kyle and I went to the Robb Field Skatepark again and then to Memorial Skatepark. I liked this park because it had a bowl with an easy roll in and smaller drop-ins. We went to this awesome grocery store that's in California called the Grocery Outlet. Everything was so cheap... I'm talking $1.20 almond milk and $.99 cent bags of granola. Definitely a road trip staple store. On Wednesday, there's a farmer's market in OB in the evening. They shut down the street and the farmer's market gets hoppin'. There was live music, food vendors, fresh produce, homemade hummus, lotions, jewelry... you name it and with plenty of samples! We got some Indian food from one of the vendor's who boasted it was "the best food in San Diego." It was pretty damn good Indian food and huge portions. Kyle and I split one. There are a ton of thrift stores in Ocean Beach that we explored. My favorite shop we went into was called The Black, which sold oddity items, but the best part was their book selection. It was as if they had personally gathered all the books I wanted to read into about 4 or 5 shelves. Books by Jack Kerouac, Chuck Palahniuk, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson. Books about drugs, musicians, autobiographies, novels. It took everything I had not to buy 'em all, but I copied down a hefty list of books I will buy off Amazon for much cheaper. :) Not far from The Black, is a hostel that rivals the one we stayed at in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica in terms of its aesthetic value. The whole place was painted psychedelic. I'm putting this in here 'cause if you don't have anybody to stay with in OB, you should definitely look this place up. It's called Ocean Beach International Hostel. 

Love the art on this hostel. :)

We spent a couple days catching up with some friends and family. We went to Coronado Island to get lunch with Kyle's cousin Quinn, who he hadn't seen in 6+ years! Coronado is a super nice community, with everything you could possibly need available without you having to leave the island (even though it is a little pricer). We took a bike/skate shesh around the island to check it all out and then stopped for lunch at a take-out burrito shop called Clayton's, which was so good we ended up eating there again the next day. They load it up on the sauces and also have the "California Burrito" option, but I chose shrimp instead and was very pleased. The next friends we reunited with were my parent's friends, Judy and Brad. We went to their beautiful home in Point Loma that had an incredible view of Sunset Cliffs. I didn't recognize anything, considering it had been 12 years! Their house had an attachment built on and everything was very modern. The things that looked the most different were their daughters, Bridgette and Nicole, who are both very close to graduating high school. The way I remember them was like the pictures they had on their walls!! I'm sure they didn't recognize me either though. Judy and Brad cooked us a delicious dinner complete with tri-tip steak, roasted veggies, potatoes, a side salad, and some good wine. It was good catching up with them and we stayed pretty late before we headed back to Coronado. We ended up getting to visit with Kyle's Uncle Bernie for a little bit, as he had just flown home from Texas. We were happy our schedules crossed just so...

This a pretty famous skate spot called the "Piano Keys" at
Washington Street Skatepark.

Our next stop was Joshua Tree National Park, where we were we excited to see those odd trees. On our way out of San Diego, Kyle had to skate one more skate park so we went looking for Washington Street Skatepark. This is by far the coolest park we have been to so far in my opinion. It looked like something out of Tony Hawk Pro Skater. The features are very steep and way too advanced for me, so I just took it all in. It was clearly built by a bunch of skateboarders, all underneath a freeway bridge--- there are mosaics, cool designs welded into the fence, a few planters with succulents, and even a grill! And it was pretty much just built by a bunch of skateboarders. In 1999, the amount of fines skateboarders were accumulating in San Diego was becoming unbearable, so some locals banded together and started laying some concrete. Of course, the city was outraged and tried to shut it down immediately. However, this generated publicity and support for the underdogs. The skateboarders won and by 2002 (after they had gotten all the permits, paperwork, and designs drawn up) they began adding to Washington Street Skatepark and shreddin' some more. I was glad we stopped to check it out. When you get to Joshua's Tree, there is pretty much one main road with many campgrounds branching off. We stayed at the Hidden Valley Campground, for $10 a night, which we thought looked the most appealing out of the ones we had passed. It had picnic tables, fire rings, and a compostable toilet (no running water). Two deserts come together in Joshua Tree National Park, the Mojave and the Colorado, which make for a very interesting landscape, then throw in the Joshua Trees and you might as well be on another planet. There are just these GIANT boulders randomly scattered about the desert. The Joshua Trees are such an odd plant. They have these spiky green balls at the end of their branches, which twist and grow in random directions. They were given their name by Mormon pioneers in the 19th century because their limbs reminded them of the outstretched arms of Joshua. We climbed to the top of the boulder mountains and took in the view right before sunset (we didn't want to climb down in the dark).

Funny little trees, aren't they? 

I liked how the Stoner Skatepark was red and black, very sleek.

We left in the morning to head to visit my friend Sadie who lives in Los Angeles--- on Stoner Street, of course. Stoner Street is right off Santa Monica Boulevard, which had me singing the Cheryl Crow song for the rest of the day. When we got to her apartment, we discovered there is a skatepark on Stoner Street, which Kyle visited quite a few times while we were visiting. We tried to get to Venice Beach for sunset, but that damn LA traffic made us miss it. We still enjoyed a doobie on the beach with a back drop of graffitied walls and pink skies. There are these random concrete walls on the beach that serve no purpose as far as I can see, but have been covered in layers and layers of spray paint. It's tradition and allowed by the city to spray paint these walls. We followed the routine of getting impossibly drunk on the first night of our arrival and recuperating for most of the next day... We went to Venice Beach a few times while we were visiting. We went with Sadie once to check out all the vendors. All up and down the boardwalk are all sorts of sights: wackos, art, wood sculptures, t-shirt shops, and more. There is also a skatepark on the beach, Venice Beach Skatepark. Unfortunately, it's pretty much always crowded with a sea of tourist gawking by the railings. The park did look really fun though and it's got an awesome view to enjoy. Another time when Sadie was working, we skated to the Santa Monica Pier and had a little picnic. Then we skated down to Venice again, where we passed Muscle Beach. It looked like something straight out of Spongebob. There were tons of beef head Larry the Lobsters out there pumping iron. Another thing that I thought was funny was the rollerbladers. I feel like for some odd reason, Venice Beach has become a famous place to rollerblade. They even have places where you can rent some! For most of the time, we used the public transportation here, which is pretty awesome--- it just takes super long to get anywhere with all the stopping (but hey, that's public transit for you). We took a bus around the city called the Big Blue Bus. It was cheap and easy to find because there were stops on almost every corner. We tried taking the metro system to this place called The Echo, which has a funky dance party on Saturdays. Sounded like my kind of party... BUT we got really turned around on the metro and ended up just going home after spending too much time trying to get there that we would have had to pay the cover (it was free until 10:30pm). So a word to the wise, maybe plan your route before and include plenty of travel time to get where you're trying to go. Good luck!!! The funky dance party would definitely be something to check out. One night, we walked to this place near Sadie's apartment called Touch Vinyl. They had a band playing, which I do not remember the name of because it wasn't my bag, baby. I think if they got rid of the chick singer and the drummer who laid down that same beat for every song, the bassist and guitar player might have something. Dunno though, because the other two were drowning it out. Needless to say, we didn't stay long. We would have liked to have browsed through the shop, but it was kind of dark in there for the show. If you're interested in looking at vinyl, my advice is to go during regular store hours.

Venice Beach Skatepark

It feels good to be in California. Southern California did not disappoint and I can't believe there's still Central and Northern Cali to explore! This state is so huge and foreign to me I might as well be in another country. I love how many of the city and street names are Spanish--- La Jolla, San Diego, Los Angeles, Coronado... makes me feel at home because many of the places in St. Augustine are also Spanish. Now we're off to take the magical US 1, can't wait to see what lies ahead!