Day 17
I woke up about 6:30 and got the last of my things
together. I was starting to drive north
for the wedding now that is in Oregon. That is about a 20 drive. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get
there in the event that something went wrong, I would have a day or two extra
to get there. On my way north, I decided I wanted to stop by Venice Beach. I
love skating around and checking out the bowl, there are always good skaters there.
While I was driving to Venice, I was sitting in horrible traffic for about an
hour and my car started doing this strange idol shaking thing. It doesn’t like
idol, it died on me twice, but it started right back up again. It must be some
sort of airflow or spark plug thing. I’m not too sure, but it’s got to be air
not getting to something. When its over 10 miles an hour, it’s fine. Needless to say, it was a stressful drive. I
was just glad it started up again. I kind of just pretended like it wasn’t
happening… and every time it started to die at a stop sign or in traffic, I
just talked to my baby and motivated her to keep going, haha.
When I got to Venice I decided to skate to the pier with the
roller coaster on it (Santa Monica pier?) and back to Venice. I ate at a little
café and had some bomb mahi mahi tacos. Mmm. Afterwards, I went to watch the
kids skating the bowl. Some of those little kids are just amazing! They have so
much confidence skating and fitting in like a little adult there. I love
watching the dynamic of the two age differences skating, they all work together
and I think that’s neat.
I was about to walk to the beach and a guy came up to me and
said, “Hey! Where are you going?”
“To the beach.”
“Great, Ill go with you.”
I reply with a long “Oookay… your coming with.”
It’s funny how blunt and bold people are. ‘Well alright, I guess your comin with
then…,” I was thinking in my head. I
don’t mind company at all, so it was nice to chat. His name was Josue. He was a
little taller than me with dark skin and brown hair. He had a great smile and a
great attitude about life. We went and sat on the beach and watched the waves
come in. We talked for about an hour
about all sorts of things. We talked about skating, health, working out,
reading, 911, and ambitions in life. We also talked about how sometimes you
have to quit hanging around certain people just because they are not benefiting
yourself. And not in the way that they
are bad people by any means, but in the way of just being healthy or setting a
goal for yourself; sometimes people get in the way and that’s a fact that no
one wants to admit sometimes. That is how some people get sucked in and never
get out. It is self control and being self aware. Two girls and I, back home, Andrea and
Angela, always say “Be self aware!" So many people aren’t and it really kind of blows my mind. Some people are just oblivious to what’s
going on right in front of their face.
Anyhow, it was a great variety of things in such a short
amount of time. Its funny, too, how you can hangout with someone and you ask
questions and try to engage them but they just don’t follow suit or ask back.
Then you talk to someone you have never met before and you can talk for an hour
straight about all kinds of things. It’s interesting to me how certain people
feed off of each other. I wish I would have gotten a photo of Josue. Sometimes I just get caught up in the convo that I don't think to take a photo. That's odd for me right?
Around four I finally got on the road. Time really passed me
by. Well, I actually left around 2:30ish but traffic was so bad I didn’t get
out of LA until four. I had 9 hours to go… My stopping point was in Northern
California at a friend’s house. I didn’t get there until about 1am. In that
time, I dropped my debit card at gas pump and didn’t realize it 200 miles later
when I stopped to get a snack. You’ve got to be kidding me.. its that moment
when you’re at the register and you go to get your card out and kind of panic,
but try to play it cool. “Um hold on, let me check my car.” Then you check your
car and your thinking, "No, no no. No way!"
I called the gas station to check on it- they had it, I told them to cut
it up and I canceled it. I had one rushed to my friend’s address that I was
stopping at. Way to go Deleigh… I have no clue how that happened. Good thing I
gave myself a few days, because the card takes two days to get there. Alright, long enough for today!
