To My Mother, Who Liked the Bit About the Horse

Less than twenty-four hours remain in our illustrious voyage to a faraway land, so that now, sitting in bed after a somewhat unsatisfactory breakfast (for the bagels and English muffins and toast they had all varieties of jam, jelly, and preserves: razz berry, apricot, grape, strawberry, etc.; however, they were limited to one very bland and sad choice of peanut butter: creamy; how odd!), I once again find my thoughts turning to life-pertinent things, like rent, bills, work, and just what the heck everybody has been up to for the past week and a half!

Here, in my particular fashion, is what I have been doing: took a bus to Los Angeles from Oceanside in order to catch a bus going further up the coast to San Luis Opisbo, unfortunately, because we were not privy to the "line" situation, we stood in the wrong section, and when our bus arrived, we were complained out of our slightly illegitimate spot in line, which resulted in the bus leaving (full) without us aboard; we ended up being required to wait five hours for another bus going to the same place, but, luckily, our money was refunded (actually, $2 extra was refunded per ticket, but they did not seem to care when I informed them) and we were given a free meal ticket for the station's food court (which, similar to the meal I had this morning, was rather bland and not-good), so I do not consider the wait a complete loss; the previously mentioned sister's boyfriend's aunt allowed us to sleep in her domicile for a couple nights, while we visited Hearst Castle (eerily reminiscent of Citizen Kane I might add) and wandered around a few of the local beaches; for the last leg of our trip, a friend of my sister's, John, decided to drive us up the coast along highway one, which turned out to be a spectacular ride with all the views and waterfalls and attempted campings considered; we made it to Santa Cruz and camped for a couple more days, enjoying the beaches and boardwalks of the decidedly tourist-filled town, before continuing our journey to San Francisco, where we are now.

As Jennifer predicted, we were very nearly unable to depart from her friend's company (and his incessant, horrid taste in music and propensity for speaking constantly about nothing?/everything?/anything!), for, as she so succinctly put it: "We could not get rid of [him] if we tried,"—which we did!—until we were safely outside our hostel in the city. Although it was a trying trip, we survived, perhaps a bit better for it.

As promised, here are some pictures of our trip (click for the full version)!