Shaking the Snowglobe

I’m warm, in shorts and tie die crocs, looking up at the grey overcast behind the tallest and skinniest palm trees I’ve ever seen. In Naples, Florida I’ve always felt like the palm trees looked battle ready; they are prepared for hurricane winds, the strongest and sturdiest the fit survivors. Here in San Diego, and in Ocean Beach in particular, life and weather knocking you down is much less likely. The trees grow high, perhaps a little less grounded in reality, but loving the views far out into the Pacific sunset and over Mission Bay.

Today is Nick and my last day in San Diego. We’ve reversed our February roles, where I was in between jobs on a month long adventure and he was taking time off work. Now I am the one on PTO. Well, to clarify, Nick was not actually on PTO in February, but he did manage to take time off work most days. Nick mused on Monday on the surreality of how we’re spending our time. “I’m really just living a California dream, ‘Oh what did you do this past week?’, you know, I just went surfing in SoCal, drove up to the Eastern Sierra for some rock climbing and backcountry skiing, then came back to San Francisco for my autonomous vehicle machine learning job”.

Sometimes when I am home for Thanksgiving and my relatives ask me how it is out there in San Fran, California paradise, I have to disappoint them with my lived reality of constant fleeces, windbreakers, and puffers to protect against chilly sea breezes. Life is amazing there, but its not Katy Perry’s Hollywood California of sun kissed skin and melting popsicles. I had almost come to believe that entire view of California was a bit of an illusion. But last Saturday as Nick and I drove down the coast through Fresno and vast plains of brown, dead grass, we soon checked into the true Hotel California day dream.

We were hungry as we approached LA, and Nick’s good friend Praav was up in the Hollywood hills according to find my friends. We texted, asking if he wanted to grab dinner, and made a plan to pick him up from his party. Nick and I ascended into the indigo sky, wildflowers beautifully growing on either side of the narrow winding roads. The houses around us had our jaws increasingly dropped. We made it to “Vista drive”, with our chins fully floored…was this really the house Praav was partying at? He came out in sunglasses, long wavy hair combed and styled back, wearing a loose linen shirt unbuttoned at the top and flowy pants. He looked like a drawn up LA guru and he welcomed us into a pool party, where there were movie star looking girls in bikinis, an inflatable swan in the pool, hibiscus gin cocktails, and a sauna in the back. Nick and I looked at each other briefly and then ran back to the car to get our bathing suits. “We swear this is not something we actually do very often,” Praav and his friends said. They had actually rented this dream house’s pool through an app called Swimply. Well what mattered to us was that they were in fact doing it today, timing is everything. One detail about the house I remember was this light blue and green tile built into the brown stucco. “Nick, if you’re seeing this, wherever you are in the world. It’s a very good sign.”

So instead of going out to a nice dinner with Praav, we instead partied for a bit and then went to Brother’s Cousin’s tacos where we waited in line for an hour (I actually got us a pizza while we were in line to stave off the hanger), and then ate probably the best al pastor I’ve ever had. Back to the road, back to San Diego.

We’d been formally warned, by friends of mine that live down in San Diego and Wikipedia that we were in for “May Grey” and “June Gloom” type weather down here. Not quite the heat and sun we were looking for, but Nick and I were going to be happy with the escape either way. Turns out, the past four days have been absolutely perfect and sunny. Each day we’ve woken up in our beach side hostel, rented boards which have gone from $12 one day, to $6 the next day, to “this one’s on me” from the front desk guy. Every day has been special, but essentially looks like this: Wake up, eat some eggo home style waffles from the hostel, grab the surf boards and mess around in the white water, and even try to catch a few smaller green waves, return the boards and go get an iced coffee, eat some amazing food – fish tacos, bagels with lox, garlic pepper Korean chicken wings, do another sport like running in Torrey Pines, climbing at Mesa Rim, one evening we joined our friend Anaise for her trail running climb in Mission trails, eat some more amazing food – Thai Sukho Extraordinaire, Ms. B’s Coconut Club, come back to the Hostel and chat with some nice people, read, and pass out, ready to do it all again the next day. As any friend of mine or Nick’s can imagine, the whole day is filled with mantras of self hype, “we are crushing this”, “wow we just can’t miss”, etc. etc.

I could see anyone getting trapped here in the best possible way, living healthy (I didn’t mention all the very berry smoothies we’ve drinken) and living happy. But today’s grey overcast confirms that it’s time to go. I’m excited to move onto our mountain adventure, and then check out of the Hotel for a while to go to my cousin Taylor’s wedding and spend quality time with family.