Kerplunk!

 Internet Pals,

Here I sit on the porch of a couch surfer named Sarkis in the wonderful town of San Luis Obispo, California.  Life is a sweet and so is the weather out here.  The sun kissed foothills over looking the Cal Poly campus...it's all so, so, so...perfect.  But I'm jumping ahead of myself here, because before all this awesome, warm, sun drenched greatness there was...well...let's just begin at the beginning, shall we?

After my last post me and Tamara and another wwoofer from Lloyd's farm, named Mauri, decided to go on an overnight hike to try and find hot springs.  Tamara and I wanted to try to hike to Sykes, a nearby spot in a national forest, with walking paths and maps and the whole works, but Lloyd tried to deter us claiming it was dirty and not all that hot...he called Sykes a "luke warm spring".  So Lloyd told us about a little spot 2 miles south of the Little Sur Campground that we could "rock hop" to, meaning we could follow the creek (HUGE CREEK) down stream by hopping from rock to rock for 2 miles...I say 2 miles because that's what the forest service maps say, but Lloyd told us it's more like 6 miles.   I was a little apprehensive, I mean, I don't know if Lloyd hadn't been paying attention, but and Tamara wouldn't call ourselves agile or quick or cat-like and I don't feel particularly moved to hop from one slimy rock to the next for 6 odd miles in a place I've never been with no guide.  Tamara was smitten...she was relentless...she was adamant and unwavering.  So....we went.  

It's as if Mauri's face says "I know this will suck"

The plan was for Lloyd to drive us to the start of the trail, we'd walk down hill 2 miles to the edge of the creek at the Little Sur campground, pitch our tents for the night, wake up early and begin hopping, reach the springs by noonish, hang for an hour and make our way back to the top of the hill before night fall, where upon Lloyd would pick us up and we'd all head back together singing camp songs and drinking cocoa near a fire.  Ok...that was the plan...now for what really happened.

So we got dropped off at the start of the trail and began our decent into the Canyon, that much went smooth...we even got a few pictures of ourselves, eyes all aglow with the promise of adventure and fun.  Mauri spent the previous day studying a mushroom guide so she was on the lookout for some oyster mushrooms she could eat...even found some...always exciting.  I should mention here that we didn't bring all of our stuff, 50 lbs of shit whilst hiking might be ok for some powerbar munching, vegan shoe wearing asshole, but not this guy...I was going light.  So I packed a few long sleeve shirts, my rain jacket, leggings, shorts, a camelbak of water, my sleeping bag, a book and my light, as well as some food and the tent poles.  Tamara had the tent and similar items, Mauri had her own tent and sleeping bag and clothes too.  Notice please that we didn't bring our sleeping pads...deeming them unnecessary...fools...we are fools.

Here's me and mountain I didn't climb. GO ME!

 We snaked back and forth down the canyon and finally reached our camp site about an hour before sunset.  It is pretty covered by the canopy from the trees so the temperature was drastically different when the sun was gone...frigid is a word one might use.  After trying briefly (and failing miserably) at starting a fire, I decided to just go into the tent and snuggle in with my book, I'm reading a new book by Dave Eggers called "A heartbreaking story of staggering genius", very good...but I digress.  Tamara and Mauri smuggled a bottle of wine down with them so they decided to stay up a while and talk about Canada...what else would drunk Canadians talk about?  You tell me?  So...as I'm reading I realize I'm fucking freezing...it's so damn cold and damp and dank and fuck I'm cold and I realize that my sleeping pad is pretty much the only reason I haven't frozen to death since the start of this trip.   Here I am, this WHOLE time giving credit to my sleeping bag for doing such a bang up job in the anti-Margecicle campaign and then I come to find out that my sleeping bag is a lazy free loading son of a bitch.  The sleeping pads first job isn't to cushion the ground for the sleeper, no, how could it do that with only 1 inch of foam? It's ludacris, what it actually does is insulate you so that the ground doesn't suck all the heat from your body.  You've probably hear the rule that heat rises?  Well, this is false, heat actually follows cold, usually that means up, but in this unfortunate case it meant down into the cold, unforgiving ground.  In about 10 minutes flat I was freezing my ass off waiting for Tamara to come in the tent so we could at least try to cuddle together for warmth.  That night of sleep was one of the most scarring, horrible, restless nights I've ever had.  I think my soul had icicles.  Me and Tamara spent the whole night flipping and flopping around each other, each in our own little sleeping bag tubes, just wormed around, this way and that way.

Despite the shitty night of sleep we still managed to not get up at the agreed upon hour of 8am and instead woke up around 10 (my body just likes 10am).  We ate some nuts, broke camp and stashed our stuff out of sight.  Lloyd told us to leave about 3 hours to hike there and 3 hours back, so by my calculations, we would get to the springs by 1, hang for an hour, get back to the camp at 5 and then race up hill 2 miles to meet Lloyd at the car??  Shit...we were fucked.  There was no way we would make it back before night fall, but being the stubborn jerks that we are we decided to try it anyways...claiming that Lloyd was probably underestimating our abilities and blah blah blah.  Things started smooth, there was a little trail along the creek for a bit and it seemed doable at the pace we were keeping, but then the actual rock hopping started because there isn't really a place to walk along the side of the creek, you have to walk on it.  I felt pretty comfortable walking on the rocks with my Teva sandals (really happy about buying them now) and Mauri seemed to be managing alright in a pair of Lloyd's old shoes, but Tamara was wearing really old canvas Keds with almost no grip.  The first time Tamara had to brave the creek she froze up...not 100 feet from the campsite...the seed, the instigator, the FUCKING PERSON WHO CONVINCED ME TO GO, totally froze up, unable to get over her fear of getting wet or falling in or cracking her head open...I don't know...da bitch wouldn't move.  After a bit of encouragement that bordered on prodding, Tamara gingerly crouched down, stuck her foot out to reach the adjacent rock, then not so gracefully scooted over.  This. Was. Going. To. Take. Hours.

Yay a creek, better take my socks off, don't want to get wet 

 The progress was slow, but after 2 hours we managed to make some headway and feel good about how far we made it.  Eventually we all resigned to the fact that our feet would be getting wet and we would be cold.  We would have to wade certain sections because there were no rocks.  I felt find about it because my shoes were made to get wet and be all up in nature, but Tamara was slippin' all over the place and had to go slow and the shoes that Mauri borrowed started to come completely unglued...literally...the soles came totally off.  Despite all that they wanted to continue, in the hopes of warming up in the hot springs, so we marched on.

 There were a lot of trees in the creek from rains washing them down so at the times you had to scale some pretty huge tree jams, then navigate some rapids over slipper rocks...I was starting to get the feeling that my luck with agility over these rocks was running out, but despite all that I started to pick up speed and blaze the trail.  Yep, despite my intuition...I fought it...like many cocky assholes before me...I ended up in the drink.  It would have been one thing to stumble a bit on the rocks and get my legs wet or fall on my hands, but when I fall, I go for the gold...just ask anyone who was friends with me freshman year of high school and they will tell the tale of how I top to bottomed the longest flight of stairs that Armstrong High School had to offer...AND I LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT!!  So...I went in head first...completely submerged myself.  Thank god I decided to layer up that day...ya know...where my tee shirt, 2 long sleeves, my jacket, my beanie and my gloves...I left ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for me to change into except my shorts and those were MILES back at the camp site.   I also had my camera in my pocket, but had to good sense to put it in a plastic bag before setting off...and it is because of that fact alone that I am able to share with you the next picture.

 This is me moment after I fell in, blathering on like an idiot (think of an angry deaf person meets Scrooge), I stripped all my clothes off, except for my leggings and Tamara was kind enough to give me her sweater and her bear hat.  Yep...fashion upgrade.  Go me.  At this point we all realized that we were out of our fucking minds for going as far as we had and agreed Lloyd was even crazier for suggesting it.  I then proceeded to haul ass back to camp, mostly through sheer rage, wading waist deep in the water at points, just to get back to the camp and try to dry off.  All in all it took me 25 minutes to make it back, which made me realize that we hadn't gone that far after all...we had just been traveling SUPER slow.  Go...us?

Mauri and Tamara took about an hour and while I waited for them I snuggled into my sleeping bag and read more of my excellent book...did I tell you?  By Dave Eggers? So good.  Anyways...they finally got back and we set out on the 2 mile walk back up the hill.  Fuck. My. Life.  This hill was a bitch. I had miraculously been unaware of the steep grades on the way down, go figure.  It took us about 2 hours to make it all the way to camp site where we were set to meet Lloyd.  He told us he'd be there between 4-5pm...just before sunset.  We got there at 3pm and sat down and waited...dreaming of food and really hot showers.

 After the sun went behind the hills it come insanely cold...INSANELY COLD...so again we all hunkered together in our sleeping bags and tried to stay warm.  We all spent our time speculating when Lloyd would get there, if he was even coming, if he was actually insane for suggesting we do this...it was all very Lloyd-centric and the ratings were getting lower and lower as the minutes passed.  Eventually Lloyd showed up, at about 5:30pm just before I killed and ate one of my friends for food...thankfully.

Pissed

Pissed

Lloyd took us back to his house and we gorged ourselves on peanutbutter and bread and anything else we could find for fear we may never be able to eat again and then we each had the most awesomely warm shower EVER...Lloyd even pumped up the sauna for us.  I spent the rest of the night sipping hot tea by the fire and reading more of my book ::COUGH:: daveeggers ::COUGH::

The next day we were off...bound for the road...hittin' the ol' dusty trail.  We said farewell to Lloyd and company and we're excited to be on our way away.  Tamara decided she didn't have enough of the hiking/hotspring experience so she got dropped off at the trail head for Sykes, while I got dropped off at near the Esalen spa entrance, where I found my ride.  This guy named Harry came out of the resort and told me he was headed to very same place I was headed...San Luis Obispo!! YAY!!  Harry turned out to be this really cool guy from the LA area who was treating himself to an awesome spa weekend.  We talked about life and love and being gay (both of us being of that persuasion).  He offered me granola bars and organic apples while pointing out things "every Californian is obligated to show people".  He even stopped at this beach where all the Elephant Seal migrate to every year to relax and mate.

This is Harry and another hitch hiker he picked up named Nathan...Nathan was living in the woods with a friend searching for cool rocks they could turn into Jewelry and sell.  He was headed to town to get some food and renew his food stamps.  Nathan was really nice, but smelled like roadkill.

A whole BEACH of Elephant seals...it was pretty amazing, this site.  All these huge seals, barking and laying and getting randy with each other...it was like the Discovery Channel LIVE!  Harry turned out to be the COOLEST ride giver ever because he drove me right to the spot I was going to be couch surfing at for the night...well not RIGHT there but like 2 blocks away...we couldn't figure out how to get over the train tracks. Before I knew it was at the place I needed to be with more time than I needed...it was only 1pm!!  I met my host for the night, Sarkis, his roommates Chris and Kelly (bro and sis) and Mo.  They are all college students, Sark and Chris go to Cal Poly, Kelly goes to the community college and Mo is working before going to school.  They have a really great place overlooking the foothills.  Sarkis and Chris took me on a walking tour of SLO last night and then we all got up early and biked to the Cal Poly campus.  Cal Poly has a really excellent architecture and engineering program so there are all these weird structures on this hill on campus that we checked out.

Sarkis, left, and Chris on one of the weird structures

We walked all over checking the campus out, then we hiked up this big foothill and had a view of the whole town and the campus and even the ocean...it was really rewarding and I felt super pumped out this town and the people that inhabit it.

CHECK OUT THE VIEW BRO!!

Timed photo awesomeness!

So yeah, now I'm just sitting on the porch watching the sun go down, waiting to hear from Tamara.  She called me a little while ago saying she made it here, so she's alive!! Woohoo.  Sark offered to let us stay the night and then head out in the AM which is rad since it's getting a little late.  Looks like tomorrow we'll be heading to Santa Barbara to surf again.  Only a few more days and we'll be in LA!!  Don't really know what I'll do there...maybe just leave right away and go to San Diego.  

Well...that's keeping you up to date!!

-Maggie