Santa Cruz
The phone rang around 8:30 this morning. I was about 20% awake, for reasons that escape me now (and probably escaped me then, too). Usually I let the phone ring when I'm in bed, but today I thought, "Oh, that's probably John; I should answer it", so I did, and it was, and I told him I'd call him when I woke up and was ready to think about the day.
And I promptly fell back asleep for another 45 minutes.
John basically thought that since I get into work by 9:30 (usually earlier) that I'd probably have been up for a couple of hours by then. In fact, my usual pattern is to get up around 7:30 on weekdays, but sleep 'til 9 or 10 on weekends. So, oh well.
John and I had plans to go hiking today, and when I finally called him I suggested a neat-looking trail in Santa Cruz, listed in a book I bought. John seemed lukewarm toward that; he apparently wanted to work today, and preferred a shorter hike. So we planned to meet at Apple around 11 and head up to Skyline Drive to hike.
Well, I got to Apple and went up to John's office...
...and yikes! saw that he'd shaved off his moustache and goatee. He's had the 'stache as long as I've known him, so it was a pretty impressive change. It was especially peculiar to see John-mannerisms coming from this facial-hair-missing face. Huh.
Besides that, John had changed his mind about working, so we headed back to my place, piled into his car, and headed down to Santa Cruz after all. It turned out to be considerably closer to the Valley than John had thought; only about 35 miles from my place. Going over the hills was impressive; we basically drove into the cloud cover at the summit, and found that whereas the Valley was warm and sunny, the coast was cool and overcast. Bummer! Not intolerable, though.
And, instead of going for a hike, we walked around the amusement park by the beach, then walked along the beach, watched the bikini volleyball babes, and headed out the wharf.
We actually saw some impressive things from the wharf: Besides the dozen-or-so sea lions lying on the beams beneath the wharf, we saw a sea otter right below the wharf drifting along eating a crab. John commented that otters "always look so damned happy", and this one sure did! It eventually finished its meal and dived out of sight.
So I guess my luck with seeing Cool Things in California continues to hold.
We had lunch at a place on the wharf, and then decided to head back home, since it was still overcast and actually getting chillier; not great hiking weather. Back at my place, John decided he felt really tired, and headed home for a nap, saying he'd call me later. I walked down to the nearby comic book store and bought a couple of things (like the fourth issue of Comic Book Artist magazine, which I really highly recommend as a series to anyone who's a comic book fan, especially issue #3 which spotlights Neal Adams), and watched a couple of episodes of Homicide on tape.
John apparently was really zonked, since he phoned after 7 pm, and had apparently slept over an hour longer than he'd expected. I drove up and met him, and we spent a couple of hours hiking around his neck of the woods, so he could show me some of the terrain and districts up there. Then we went to a cool taco place near his apartment, and finally to get some dessert.
John says he wants us to have a "John day" sometime where we burn a lot of calories and ingest few, as opposed to all the "Michael days" we typically have together which are just the opposite. I commented that he hasn't been complaining much, and he said that's because Michael days are much more fun! Hmm!
On the drive home I got partway down 280 before realizing I'd left my jacket at the restaurant where we had dessert. I weighed the inconvenience of driving 15 miles back to get it versus returning later in the week to get it versus just buying a new one... and drove back and successfully recovered it. Annoying, though. I have a history of leaving my jacket behind when I go places. Argh.
But overall it was a really fun day!
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