Escape

Don't worry. I remember my promise to regale you with tales of my weekend in Santa Barbara. And now I shall!

I headed down there last Thursday. Of course, preparations began before then. In order to drive long distances, it is essential to first get directions to your final destination (Jenny had moved since my last visit), do laundry, determine the location of every In-n-out en route (mmmm, in-n-out... the paragon of fast food! And a culinary essential of road trips. At least, road trips in California, Nevada, or Arizona), clean out the fishie poop, water the plants, and of course pack. John decided to come along as co-pilot. He's going to be doing field research next summer, and wanted to check out the tadpoleys and predators thereof in Santa Barbara.

On Friday, Jenny had to work, so John and I explored his potential field site stream. He's a much more fun ecologist than I am =). Then we went to the beach! Santa Barbara beaches aren't the be-all-end-all, unfortunately. They're super crowded (there was this ugly middle aged woman near us who persisted in doing annoying exercises that involved her butt to be the only thing you could see if you looked in that direction... You just couldn't help it. Like a train wreck... Instead of admiring the beautiful bluffs and cool, twisted trees atop them, your attention was captured by legs waving in the air, drawing your line of sight to an ugly butt in an unfortunate white bikini. It's a good thing I wasn't wearing my glasses, but even still! When I do exercises, I do it in the privacy of my room, with the door shut. Not on a public beach, marring the scenery...) That stretch of the coastline also has offshore oil deposits, so there are oil rigs in plain view. (I thought they were Christmas trees the last time I visited (in March =) ), because it was dark and they were all lit up and I'd never been there before so I didn't know...) This offshore extraction causes the water to smell rather oily. It's kind of gross. What's even grosser is that Jenny's actually gotten tar in her hair from swimming there. ewww! There's also a lot of seaweed around, that likes to twine around ankles. But that's not so bad. Kelp is cool, and definitely the least foul of the beach pollutants (though being a natural inhabitant of the area, it can hardly be called a pollutant).

Despite all this, it was still very nice to go to the beach. I had lots of fun wading into the surf, until I felt like dashing back to warm up and retrieve my ankles from the kelp. We also saw dolphins (at least three)! They were really close to shore. Mostly they'd just skim the surface, breaking just enough for you to see their fin and a bit of back. But one must've done a little jump or something, because the rear three quarters of its body emerged perpindicular to the water! It was very exciting.

The next day, we ventured up to Pismo Beach and went sea kayaking. John had never sea kayaked before, and has been wanting to for some time. It was cool! They suited us up in wet suits and booties, just in case we capsized. I was plagued by being too skinny for my height, and had an extra wet suit belly. whee. Then the three of us got to paddle off on our own. It was really pretty. It started out foggy, which created a really cool eerie, yet peaceful atmosphere. It burned off quickly enough though. The water was such a beautiful color. We kept skimming over the top of kelp beds, which made paddling difficult. But kelp really is super cool: it was really fun to be able to look down upon it.

The most incredible part, however, was the wildlife. We saw more dolphins (another two or so) and several sea lions (or maybe seals) as well. The sea lions were fun. They'd just camp out in a clump of kelp, and gaze over at us. Being out there in a kayak, at the level of the water made us feel so very close to everything. We also saw quite a few pelicans and a couple cormorants glide past, skimming across the water's surface.

I must admit, I am not a good person to take along on such adventures. I have zero upper body strength, so I don't want to go very far or very long, and I was starting to get mildly seasick. That was strange. I'm generally not susceptible to motion sickness. The only other time I've been affected by it was because of half an hour of continuous turbulence in a very small plane (a cessna or something) in Alaska. I think this might've been the result of slight dehydration. Who knows. I was good not to be whiney and obnoxious, though! Didn't really matter too much, since Jenny and John noticed my lack-of-chipperness, and were solicitous of me nevertheless.

That was basically all of the excitement of our trip. It was great to escape Davis and the Central Valley. Now if I could just get away again... =D