Hi Gram!

We awoke both happy and sad. Happy because we’d had such an amazing time the last couple weeks. Sad because Zibby would be flying home to Chicago this afternoon and we wouldn’t get to see each other for a few more weeks. Happy because we were going to get tacos before going to the airport. Sad because we hadn’t seen nearly enough of California. After checking out of the hotel and packing the car, I started driving west while Zibby did a little research on how to find a good taco truck near the airport. We danced in our seats as the car bopped down the highway, letting Google guid us toward Venice Beach. We found parking by the beach, then backtracked up the road a little bit until we found the Taco truck we were looking for. We placed our orders and were soon sitting on the curb with lots of napkins. We stuffed our faces with some messy tacos, washed them down with a bottle of soda, and laughed our way through some memories of how much fun we’d had in the past ten or eleven days.

We got off the curb and threw away our trash, then headed back to the beach to rent some scooters and see the boardwalk. We got back to the beach and tried renting the scooters, only to find out that it was a lot more difficult than we expected. After trying to synchronize an app on my phone, and add some funds, then authorize another app and provide my drivers license, we were finally able to rent one scooter, but it wouldn’t allow me to rent a second scooter. I signed out of the first scooter and after spending $0.16 and half an hour, we decided to just walk along the boardwalk. There were more people than I would have expected for a weekday, but it wasn’t too crowded. The boardwalk kind of petered out, so we turned around and headed back the other way. We saw a woman feeding the birds out of her car, then screaming at them to leave her alone. There were a few homeless people with makeshift camps setup to protect them from onlookers and the weather. A few people were out hawking their paintings; some landscapes and creations of their minds, some caricatures or sketches done while you wait. After a while, we wandered over to the beach and walked along the surf for a while, but the wind was blowing the sand around, so we opted to head back to the car and head for the airport. I kept trying to get lost so I wouldn’t have to drop her off, but against my better efforts, Google maps kept correcting my course and got us there. We said our goodbyes and I watched her shepherd her bags into the airport, then eased my way back into traffic and left the airport. I made plans for the next day, got some tea for my sore throat, and found a hotel to sleep off the congestion that I felt coming on.

In the morning, I got some stuff done on the computer before heading out to meet my friend Mike for lunch. I met Mike Cubert at Skydive Chicago when we were both jumping there. He was always making us laugh whether we were at the dropzone or gallivanting around Chicago. He moved out to California a few years ago to work for SpaceX and has been doing a great job out here. He’s married and has a little boy now, and they’re just loving the west coast. We found our way to a good ramen shop, something I’m not familiar with from the midwest. In college, we used to joke about surviving on ramen noodles because you could buy a packet of dry noodles with a seasoning packet for $0.10 each. They didn’t taste all that great, but they kept you alive so you could spend your money on drinks and going out. This ramen, though, was the real thing. It was like a noodle soup with seasonings and spices, pork, peppers, a hard-boiled egg, some leafy vegetables, and I don’t know what else. It was DELICIOUS! We sat there, slurping our soup while we caught up on our current lives, shared stories from when we were jumping back at SDC, and had a good time. After lunch, Mike had to get home to spend some time with his son before work and I headed south toward San Diego to see another friend name Mike. Mike Macino lives outside of San Diego in Alpine, CA a nice quiet community outside the hub-bub or the city. Mike and I jumped together at SDC years ago too. He was an instructor that took a few of my friends on their first skydive, the kind of guy who was always excited and made the student feel excited and safe. He spent his winters teaching in California for a few years and eventually stopped coming back to the chilly Illinois weather. I met his girlfriend Casey and their son Ethan, and boy is Ethan a talker! It started snowing as I was getting close, and they had a few inches on the ground by the time I arrived.

Ethan ran out and was so flabbergasted by the snow. “Oh my gosh! This is the coolest thing ever! Look, it’s snowing! I hope it keeps snowing forever! I love the snow!” He went on like that for most of the night and kept all of us smiling. Mike and I took him outside to make a snowman, where he started with a snowball then rolled it around so it could get larger and larger until it was heavier than he could push anymore. We stacked that with the snowballs Mike and I were working on, then we found some sticks for arms while he ran inside and asked mom for a carrot. A couple rocks for eyes, and the little guy came to life. Inside, Casey is quite the chef, I hear, and was going through her recipes suggesting tantalizing dishes to make for dinner. She kept coming across ingredients that they’d just run out of or that the store didn’t have in stock last time they were there, so we decided to go check out a Chinese restaurant that they all liked. Ethan just stared out the window at this amazing white stuff falling from the sky the whole ride there. When we got inside, Ethan showed that he would be a leader when he grows up. He was making small talk with the hostess that seated us, then chatted up the people at the other tables, asking about their dinners and telling what he likes there. He ordered Edamame, a common asian appetizer of steamed beans in the shell, as his appetizer and asked if he could have a side salad too. He called them “mama beans” and devoured almost every one, letting his parents and I try a few. I’ve never seen a five year old that was so outgoing, so polite, and wanted vegetables. He didn’t just eat them out of duty, he really wanted them and would have been upset if mom had told him he couldn’t have any. The food was good, the waitress was friendly, and we had a good time. When we got back to their house, Casey whipped up some chocolate chocolate chip cookies while we watched a movie, a perfect cap on a fun night.

The snow was still there in the morning, much to his surprise. The roads were closed as the county scrambled to find plows or shovels to get rid of this foreign substance. We read a report that they had one plow, but it broke down. Nobody wanted to drive in these conditions, and a lot of the locals didn’t know how, so they and their neighbors decided to keep the kids home. He spent his first snow day ever playing with his friends, knocking over the snowman and trying to sled on the hill across the street. The sun was quickly melting what was left, so the kids made hay while the sun was shining and had a great time. Once the interstate was open, I packed up my things and hit the road toward Arizona, eager to see my parents.