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Published: March 4th 2008
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posted by Onaxthiel: Monterey is a very nice place to wake up. This was the day that we planned on seeing Big Sur, which was a requested stop for us to make for an old social studies teacher of ours. As she was an exceptional teacher, and doesn't think think she will have the opportunity to make the drive herself, we decide to see some of the area for her. Really, the scenery begins getting impressive already at Monterey. Our first stop was at an old Spanish mission just off highway one. The monastery looks like it would have been a good site to explore, but they didn't plan on opening up until about forty five minutes after our arrival, so we decided to keep heading south. Nearby is a state park with the largest grains of sand I have ever seen. They were almost the size of pebbles. Pebble Beach is also in the area, so perhaps it was more than coincidence. Obfuscator had another opportunity to take some shots of the surf here, and I think it would have been an excellent swimming hole excepting the frigid waters of the central California Pacific. On we drove, past Naval
installations, ranches, and scenic lighthouses. The road was dotted with pullouts so gawkers like ourselves would be able to take their pictures without stopping traffic, and we certainly took advantage of them.
After a few more miles of driving, we arrived at Andrew Molera, the first of the Big Sur state parks. The park had a beach accessible, in theory, from two paths. We selected the first one and found within the first hundred yards that it really was spring in California and the state was celebrating by flooding all of its streams and washing out their normal bridges in favor of fords through swiftly moving floods. Obfuscator and I decided that perhaps on this occasion, discretion really was the better part of valor. Circling around to the slightly longer trail gave us a chance to discuss Frisbees and throw them. I am not much of a frisbee player, but Obfuscator certainly is, and by the time we reached the beach I had learned all about disc theory. Several surfers had beaten us to the waves this morning, so we watched their attempts while we played on the bluffs above.
The next Big Sur park was somewhat opposite
of the last. It was a beautiful wooded area of mountains and canyons. Given that our time was a bit limited, we selected a few short paths and saw what we could. Streams, waterfalls, redwoods, and a canyon that ran down to the ocean a few miles away. The park would have been an excellent place to spend a night camping except for A. time constraints to see Obfuscators old friend from college, and B. the number of ticks he picked up in the forest. Obfuscator, not his friend. Yes, dear readers, Big Sur is infested by blood sucking spirochete infecting parasites that love to feast on skinny computer nerds. At least that is the conclusion I drew from Obfuscator finding a total of four of the little buggers while I, walking right beside him all day, appear to be insect free. Now if only I could kick this strange fever with accompanying rash....
From Big Sur we had a marathon driving session to make it to LA in time to crash with Obfuscators buddy. I won't bore you with the details except to say that it involved lots of small towns, two wrong turns and discovering the land
of really large mansions and estates just north of Santa Barbara. Finding our destination in one of the largest metros in the country was a bit of a challenge. Obfuscator lived up to his name by having me drive all over creation in order to find the street we needed, which could have been accessed from the highway four exits later. At least we got a nice tour of the upscale parts of town we otherwise would have skipped. When we did find R.G.s apartment, it was in a fairly nice part of town near UCLA. Not a big surprise, since this is where he is doing his graduate work. We got to meet his roommates, who seemed like a nice enough couple who didn't hold my inability to remember their names against me. We ended the night by playing a brief game of landslide, a board game of presidential elections. In terms of games theory the game works fairly well. But the fact that my Conservative Republican pandering to his base and R.G.s Liberal Democrat pandering to his got stomped in nearly every state election by Obfuscators independent candidate seems to bespeak a certain amount of inaccuracy in the
A second one,
In honor of our mom, who should really like these flowers game.
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Mom
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Thanks
Thanks for the beautiful flower picture dedication. We are about 1 1/2 feet of snow melt and about 8 weeks away from seeing spring flowers so it's nice to know it's spring somewhere in the world.