Saturday, day three of vacation
Katie and I woke up earliest (as usual) and had bagels. Lien and Jackie rolled out of bed soon after. I started calling around abuot canoe rental. We had decided last minute that we wanted to canoe and have a picnic on the river, so I hadn't planned ahead for that. Luckily I remembered that Johnson's beach rented canoes, and they were only $20 for the whole day, and seated 4 people. Perfect. Some other options were $50 for the day for a canoe that seated 2. No thanks. So, eventually we packed up some lunch and our swimming stuff, sunscreen of course, and towels, and we were off. Johnson's beach was very crowded, as i remember it always was in the summer. Same ol' gravel beach, boardwalk, and snack shop/rental booth that they'd had for at least 10 years. (Nice to see the same lo-fi stuff here, the rest of the area was all gentrified quite a bit. Probably no cheap rent anymore either) We hopped in our canoe and took off. Jackie taught me how to steer, so I did that alot, which I liked. Lien didn't steer all that well, we ran right into the another canoe once (containing a cute guy, at least), and into the side of the river once headon... hehehe. It was all fun though. We found a nice beach to pull over on and eat. First we took a dip in the perfect water. It was a hot day, so the water was perfectly refreshing. We played with the frisbee a bit while in the water, which was hard. Luckily Jackie is a life guard, or we might have lost the frisbee once or twice. We got out of the water and set up a little tent structure thing, I'm amazed it worked. It fell down a lot, but we'd just set it up again, (well, Jackie was the dedicated tent maker actually). It was just some random sticks we found, propped against each other, with a sarong on the top. Picnic lunch was good, open faced sandwiche, pasta salad. We continued to canoe down the river, and saw a flock of ducks and a turtle. Eventually we turned and came back. We were probably out for about 4 hours.
We headed directly for a coffee shop then. Coffee Bazaar, used to be my favorite. Still a good place, though I didn't recognize it. Once we were recaffeineated or at least rehydrated, we went to Armstrong Wood's park for a walk through the redwood forest with old growth trees. Very nice and cool in there, shaded, but dusty. I got a weird pattern of marks from the dust on my sandled feet, that looked like some extreme suntan. We sat in the ampitheatre for a few minutes too. When I was in eigth grade we used to talk about getting married there.
Finally, back to the cabin for dinner. Katie was planning on making mushroom scampi for us, and it was soooo good. We used some of the Sauvignon blanc from yesterday, and drank the rest with dinner. While Katie was making dinner, the rest of us had a bottle of red wine with Gosfard Park, and appetizers of blue cheese, crakers, roasted chipotle jelly, olives, and oysters. After dinner, Jackie got really sleepy and the rest of us watched a bunch more sex in the city. It was awesome.
pictures
We headed directly for a coffee shop then. Coffee Bazaar, used to be my favorite. Still a good place, though I didn't recognize it. Once we were recaffeineated or at least rehydrated, we went to Armstrong Wood's park for a walk through the redwood forest with old growth trees. Very nice and cool in there, shaded, but dusty. I got a weird pattern of marks from the dust on my sandled feet, that looked like some extreme suntan. We sat in the ampitheatre for a few minutes too. When I was in eigth grade we used to talk about getting married there.
Finally, back to the cabin for dinner. Katie was planning on making mushroom scampi for us, and it was soooo good. We used some of the Sauvignon blanc from yesterday, and drank the rest with dinner. While Katie was making dinner, the rest of us had a bottle of red wine with Gosfard Park, and appetizers of blue cheese, crakers, roasted chipotle jelly, olives, and oysters. After dinner, Jackie got really sleepy and the rest of us watched a bunch more sex in the city. It was awesome.
pictures