The Road Trip: Day 1

It all started on a Thursday afternoon, barely afternoon...Thursday March 12, 2009...departure time approximately 12:07:39pm. Obviously I'm partially making that up because I'm not that detail oriented to have actually recorded the time we left, but you get the point. Honestly, the time doesn't even really matter. Anyway, my girl Dannah and I knew we were in for an epic adventure when we hit the road, but we really had no idea how surreal this trip would be. We pull out of my driveway on Thursday afternoon, vastly unprepared for the mayhem to come, with my '04 cloudy blue Corolla loaded down with Wheat Thins, water bottles, a weeks worth of clean underwear, and some pretty sick nasty road trip mixes. We bump some Ashlee Simpson as we climb over the San Marcos Pass. No, I didn't still your boyfriend and our destination numero uno is the University of San Francisco. We make a short pit stop in Santa Maria to visit with our friend Aan-Sofie. We pick up some frozen strawberry lemonades ("they're sweet, but not too crazy sweet" says Aan-So who works at this Starbucks). Dannah orders the beverages and delivers the names "Dannah and Luna". Apparently, I have a new alias. Awesome. After some witty banter with Aan-So and a quick drain of the bladders, we hit the road again. Santa Maria is a pretty peculiar little place. There are random pillars with tiled cows, farmers, and other agricultural tidbits sprinkled around the highway on and offramps. I would consider them a waste of money and space but who am I to judge? I mean, they did catch my attention and provide a bit of amusement. Maybe that was the intention. Well done Santa Maria.

Moving on...Dannah and I play the favorite game in which you just ask "what's your favorite (fill in the blank)." We play this all the way to Paso Robles where we have another poddy break. Dannah decides to mention she has the bladder of a three-yr-old. Awesome. Also, some of her favorites include: the color aquamarine, pigs, Reese's, summer, Honey Bunches of Oats, Runts, and her yoga pants. What a sweet girl. Upon stopping in Paso, I spot a Carl's Jr. A quick aside, Dannah and I officially came to the realization that I have a problem...I like fast food a little too much. It's dirty, I know, but for some reason I really really like it. All this to say, we stop at Carl's to get some of the best chicken soft tacos I think I've ever had. By the way, this was not only a Carl's Jr., wait for it, it has a split personality and doubles as a Green Burrito on nights and weekends. Epic. We hit the road while simultaneously grubbing on some tacos, crisscut fries, chips, beans, and riiice. We're pretty talented.

The next three hour segment of driving includes lots of the either/or game in which we learn that Dannah much prefers blondes over brunettes, hamburgers over hotdogs, Coke over Pepsi, and soft over hard (although the last one depends on the subject :) Life stories were spilled and soaked up and we finally made it to snazzy San Francisco at about 5:30. We're fast drivers. I come to the rapid realization that it's flustering and altogether nearly impossible to drive in SF, especially at 5:30 on a Thursday evening. We find a parking spot on Golden Gate street, apparently our lucky break considering we were able to park directly across from my girl Tiara's school, USF. After killing the engine, Dannah and I decide to take a 20 minute cat nap while waiting for Tiara to get out of class at 6:15. The cat nap quickly turns into a girly picture fest since we realized we hadn't taken any pictures of our trip yet. Dannah texts Chad. Then she texts Elisa. I text Tiara. Tiara calls after class and I tell her I'm on Golden Gate and Anna-po-lis street...which I quickly realize after I've read it that it's Annapolis, the o is not long. Dannah and I have a quick laugh and then Tiara arrives. Gleeful greetings and then we lug our bags up to her dorm room. It's ironic that Dannah graduated from college on this particular Thursday and just happens to be sleeping her last night of college in a dorm room. Epic. After some pointless banter in which I brag to T's dormies about Dannah's redonkulous SAT score (cough...1570/1600...cough...and she was high..cough cough)  we meet up with a bunch of Tiara's crew and after walking around town for a bit searching for someplace still open to eat, we settle on a pizza place. The pizza was bomb but the beer was foul. We decided to drink to Dannah finishing college and I let her choose the beer.

Big mistake. She ordered Sierra Nevada which I had never had. Obviously she was wasted the last time she had it because it tasted like licking asphalt that had been sprinkled with dirty mustache hairs. Imagine it. It was terrible. And we ordered a PITCHER of it. Sick. After dinner there is mass confusion and awkward stifled arguments between friends about where to spend our free time for the evening. There are 10 of us and no one knows what to do or where to go so we sit. Finally we purchase a bottle of Captain Mo (and watch a homeless man get drop kicked out of the store). We chill at the top of Twin Peaks and have a group pee sesh down the side of the mountain. Twas epic. The night ends with playing chick Twister in the lounge of one of the dorms. Side note - the theme of the dorm floor was "The Tundra"...learned about biomes in 5th grade, apparently people are trying to prove biomes are relevant. Or their floor is just really cold?