50 for 50: 19 - Kayaking with Laura

Laura, bless her, is largely what made me think the "50 for 50" could actually be accomplished.  I'm pretty sure Terry was the first one to actually agree to a thing, but when I threw the idea out there and Laura said she was up for kayaking, I thought, "yeah, maybe I actually CAN do this."

This 50 for 50 was accomplished in almost exactly 25 hours.

The clock started at 4:30 on Friday, when Laura picked me up from work, and we headed South for a quickie evening at Disneyland.  (To avoid getting stuck in Friday evening traffic all the way down to La Jolla.  Seriously.  That was my justification.  I'm sticking with it.)  We had both really wanted to check out the new "Guardians of the Galaxy" overlay to Tower of Terror, and I kept checking the wait time on the Disneyland app as we were driving down.  When she picked me up, it was under an hour.  As we neared the park, it was over two.  By the time we got ourselves there, parked, through security, and into the ol' Happiest Place on Earth, it had settled down to something like 90 minutes.  Armed with that data, our deep desire to ride the ride, our general understanding that Disneyland overstates line wait times, and a coupla hot dog platters for sustenance, we joined the queue.  We were pleasantly surprised by how fast the line actually moved, as well as all the cool stuff to look at.

And then we rode it, and it was awesome!

And then we rode the "Cars" cars ("Cars"-land is so beautiful at night!) and then we went over to Disneyland to see the fireworks (catching a bit of the Main Street Electrical Parade on the way) -- but it was too windy "at high altitudes" so they had to cancel the fireworks mid-show (although we did get to see Tinkerbell fly before they stopped, which was great, because who doesn't want to see Tink fly?), and then we got root beer floats, and then, and then...  (Geez, I really AM a 12-year-old with a credit card.)  Fortified by the sugar rush from the floats, we went back to the car and drove all the way down to La Jolla.

I'd booked a hotel on hotwire, and called the hotel to confirm we'd be there late.  I had guessed midnight.  We got there more like 12:30.  By the time we'd parked, found the Registration desk, pinged the little bell, and began check-in, it was pushing 1:00 a.m.  The nice man at the hotel upgraded us to the Executive Floor.  (Free breakfast!  Thanks, Christian!)

At some point during the day -- but not early enough to do anything about it, I realized I hadn't packed a toothbrush.  Christian said he'd send one up.  I waited a good 20 minutes, but then hung the "do not disturb" and crashed into bed, with great hopes of being visited by the Toothbrush Fairy overnight.

Six and a half hours later, I awoke refreshed and excited ... with my neurons firing enough for me to get creative with some floss picks and Q-Tips, as I was still toothbrushless.  A situation remedied by a nice lady from Housekeeping while Laura and I were enjoying our Executive Lounge free brekkie.  (I am grateful to the lady from Housekeeping for getting the toothbrush, because I partook of some lox and bagels at the breakfast, and I thought nobody -- except my cat -- really enjoys Salmon Breath.)

Having been alerted that parking at the kayaking place blows, we took a Lyft from the hotel.  And arrived at La Jolla Sea Cave Kayaks right on time.

On time to sign the waiver, on time to change into kayaky clothes, on time to snap a pic, and on time to lock the rest of our stuff in their lockers.  (Their lockers, btw, work on the principle that everyone is honest.  They give you a zip tie to use to lock your locker, and when you get back, they give you pliers to snap off the zip tie.  And everyone in your group is just passing around the pliers -- you just hand them off to the next guy and assume that he's using them on his own locker, rather than to steal someone else's junk.  And while you were off kayaking, you were assuming that nobody in the shop was snapping zip ties off and stealing stuff.  BASICALLY, the zip ties were there to keep your stuff safe in the unlikely event everyone in the shop went on break and a thief with zero tools happened by.  But, really, we were trusting this shop with out LIVES, so maybe we could also trust them with our mobiles.)

Then, our group and two guides walked over to the beach, had a brief lesson ("this is your kayak paddle; this is This Side Up on your kayak paddle"), and a brief safety briefing ("when I say face the wave, TURN INTO THE WAVE or you'll capsize"), and then loaded up the kayaks and started paddling out.  There were a few small waves we had to get by, but we'd been well schooled in how to deal (lean way back in the kayak so the weight is toward the back and the tip flies up harmlessly over the whitecap), and we got out in the water pretty good.  Laura and I were, at this point, trying to figure out a good rhythm for paddling together in our two-person kayak.  At times, I thought we were doing poorly and we were the last kayak to catch up with our group, but there was at least one single paddler out there who seemed totally, well, at sea with the whole thing.

We saw much pretty scenery and wildlife, and thank you, Laura, for bringing a waterproof digital camera, because my pictures on the little plastic thing probably won't get developed until ... hey, does anyone still develop film?

Here's us, btw.  I am fairly easy to spot as the idiot with the plastic, film camera uselessly hanging 'round my neck.

We did, actually, go into a cave.  The entrance was a bit choppy, but the nice folks from the kayak shop handled it quite safely -- they sent us in one (kayak) at a time, with one of our guides standing in the water outside the cave and physically pushing each kayak around the corner and through the difficult waves at the entrace.  Small cave, two sea lions inside.  No photos from there as we were focussing on following all safety instructions and getting out without ramming the kayaks (from other shops) coming in from the other direction and the nice snorkellers who were bobbing in the water nearby.

At one point in the tour ... somewhere between that photo at the actual cave, Laura and I got genuinely good at paddling together.  Had to use Much Less Force to get moving at a good clip.  It's all about the synchronicity, and when you get it down, it's really pretty nifty.  We started confidently passing some of the solo paddlers, and I even tried some (slightly more) challenging maneuvering moves, and Laura was right there with me.  Very cool.  After the caves, though, we kind of lost that, because I was starting to get tired (afterward, we were told we paddled for 3 miles) and started losing my form, such as it was.  When I commented on this to Laura, she said that she was still trying to match me stroke for stroke, and I had a good laugh on that.  (You ever watch synchronized diving at the Olympics and see some pair go off where one of them blows the dive so the other one tries to blow it too, so at least they are BOTH doing, like, zero somersaults?  Yeah, that's Laura matching me paddle out to the last buoy.)

We went back into shore one kayak at a time.  The dudes from the shop were pretty happy that they had only one capsize event on the way back in.  Remembering my eyeglasses lost at the bottom of the Pacific from that time, a few years back, when *I* was the one who capsized (in Santa Barbara), I had all kinds of sympathy.

And, after lunch, drove back to work.  Through it all, we talked politics and protest,  working at (and retiring from) the court, friends and family, and how stuff is GREAT but people are even BETTER.

Arriving back at 5:30 and wondering how the hell we'd fit all that in 25 hours.