The Perfect Weekend

Friday morning, Mike and I woke up at the ass crack of dawn and drove up to Pomo Canyon on the Sonoma coast to snag some no-reservations campsites. We managed to get four beauties, set into a hillside redwood grove. We spent the rest of the day working from a coffee shop in Bodega Bay, where we took advantage of free wireless and tasty caffeinated beverages.

We rendezvoused back at the campground with Mike D and went for a walk up to the top of canyon. It was classic California - golden hills, fog out by the ocean, etc. Here is Mike G being a tiny speck in the vast expanse. We met up with Caitlin, Amy and Meesh back at the campsite to build ourselves a roaring fire and throw together ridiculous dinner that included caprese salad, guacamole, hummus (guess whose!), corn, and pesto pasta with veggies. Also in attendance were the essential ingredients of camping: beer and smores. We played "Will it Burn: Food Edition", and proposed a round of "Will it Burn: Human Edition" that no one was drunk enough to actually play. Caitlin sort of played Edward Winey Hands, Meesh thought she was a flame in a tree for a little while, G set a hobo (pie) on fire, and a park ranger came and yelled at us. It was everything a party round the fire should be.

Saturday morning the ladies left, and the Mikes and me (screw grammar, yay alliteration) went on a hike to the coast. Here they are scrambling up a Big Rock.It wasn't a super intense hike - maybe 10 miles or so - but it was a damn fine way to spend the day. By mid-afternoon most of the second wave had arrived, and we all played frisbee, croquet and Extreme Bocce, which involved throwing all the balls at once in a homicidal manner. Mike has perfect croquet form.Then we got drunk and loud and full of food. One thing you have to know about the 13 people that were on this trip: at least 75% (including me) have serious difficulty controlling the volume of their voices. We all dealt with this in different ways. Leslie kept yelling and then shushing herself ("Raccoons!!! shhhh, raccoons"), some people got really drunk and unconscious, and some people just did not give a shit. Aside from our neighbors hating us, though, it was a pretty fantastic evening. Once again we had a ridiculous family-dinner style spread, with two kinds of curry (!), grilled veggies, and lots and lots of meat (steak, sausage, kangaroo?).

Beer and whiskey were drunk, laps were sat on, marshmallows were flung, tents were stumbled into. And then, in the morning, we all got to wake up to this.Eh, eh? We had a long lazy breakfast, and hung out a bit as everyone packed up.Then G, Damian and I went on a great bike ride up and down the Sonoma coast. It was gorgeous, if an ass-kicker, and I feel a bit more ready for the Marin Century now. On the way home we stopped at Wildflour Bakery for their amazing bread, and then had some oysters and caught some tunes at Scrambly's restaurant.

In summary, this weekend was like a genetically modified baby: the repository of my hopes, the fruition of my dreams, the kicking and screaming essence of perfection.

Yeah!