on our weekend get-away

I could not have asked for a better weekend. Our trip to San Clemente was exactly what I needed, and not a moment too soon I might add. I've been more stressed than ever lately and being able to get away, not be studying or working on homework, not even checking my computer or email was exactly what I needed to get through the rest of the semester and all it's work. We headed north around noon on Saturday. The drive was relatively easy, we hit a bit of traffic but what can you expect in southern CA.

We drove around the city for a little while deciding what we wanted to do for lunch, finally parked near the Community Center and walked to a delicious mexican restaurant. The weather was perfect all weekend and we ate every single meal on the patios. We decided to walk down to the pier and the beach to try to burn off some of our mexican-goodness and margaritas. Jeff was very pleased to be witness to an "almost-fight" between a couple homeless guys. They were yelling and getting up in each others' faces. We stopped to look at a sculpture a few yards away so it wouldn't be suspicious that we were watching them fight, I know, we're odd. We happened to look at the date on the sculpture, 1969-2019... Explain that? Our best idea about how the date could be in the future was that they were planning on killing someone.

We walked down the pier, disappointed that they were doing construction and we couldn't go to the end. We got attacked by some crazy pigeons and watches some people play volleyball. Jeff was very jealous. We walked along the beach skipping rocks and getting sand in our shoes. The whole reason we chose San Clemente for the weekend was to be able to go to the Fisherman's Restaurant on the pier for dinner. And boy was it delicious. A good glass of wine, warm sourdough bread, fresh clam chowder and some Dungenous crab and I was a happy girl.

Wanting to make the most of our little vacation we headed to a local bar for a few drinks after dinner. We wandered up and down the street deciding where to go in. A crazy homeless lady yelled at us just for walking by. We ended up finding a nice little bar that hassled us about not having California IDs but let us in anyways. We were very surprised when the seemingly low-key bar was suddenly packed inside with the whole town deciding to show up around 11:30pm. We played a few rounds of darts, had a couple beers, and made friends with a crazy guy Mike who loved high-fives and smacking people with his Rainbows. Needless to say, it turned into a very interesting night on the town.

We took full advantage of being able to sleep in; we definitely needed it after being out late and then rudely being woken up around 4am to our fire alarm going off. We have no idea why it went off but I definitely woke up with my heart pounding thinking we were going to have to run out of a burning building. Not too fun. We went to lunch at a local pizza place and enjoyed watching everyone walking by with their dogs, strollers, and flowers/produce from the farmer's market, it was definitely a lunch full of people watching. We headed down the street to check out the local fare, purchased some homemade, flavored honey sticks and a few cacti (I think that's the plural of cactus?) for the window-sill and headed back to SD.

Hopefully I can manage to keep my new plant life alive, they are cacti so I don't think it should be too difficult. Does anyone know how often you have to water a cactus? :-)