The finalists have been announced for a contest Jenny entered Have Travel Will Story. She made it to the top 4. Go to this site and vote for her story. She wants to win. Hers is the Nudists and Lofts story about our Honeymoon.
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As Jenny mentioned when she guest posted for me I was out of town for the weekend so I wasn’t able to post on Saturday like I had promised. Congratulations to LizzyLou on being the big winner. I was in California visiting a relative in the hospital so I’m thinking that qualifies as a decent excuse. I grew up in California so it’s nice to visit every now and then. It’s been over 5 years since I’ve been back so I was surprised at some of the things I saw. I thought I’d share with you some of the "interesting" sights. Here they are in no particular order.
Umbrella bags
As my dad and I approached the hospital this what we saw as we walked through the front door.
Umbrella Bags? I know California is really progressive but is this really necessary? What ever happened to shaking the water off of your umbrella before you enter a building? What cracked me up even more was there were instructions on how a stick person was using these genius devices. Check this out, how cool is this?
Bike riding classes
They had a brochure at the hospital of available classes that you could take. This is a picture of the front cover. I’ve been working on increasing my pedal cadence lately but maybe my training emphasis is all wrong. It looks I wouldn’t even need to pedal after taking one of these classes. I wish I could have fit one of these classes in during my stay.
The Grateful Head
I spotted this card at my parent’s house and when I asked my dad about it he told me this is where he gets his hair cut. Man, that’s groovy. My parents live in the Bay Area which is the birthplace of the Grateful Dead so I guess it only makes sense that one would get their hair cut at the Grateful Head. I wonder if I wore a tie die shirt in to get my hair cut if I would get a discount? I’ll have to give it a shot on my next visit.
Green Hills
One of the cool things about the Bay Area is during the winter nice thick green grass grows on the hills. This reminded me that as a kid we would drive by these hills and see cows grazing on all of the green grass. Most of the time the hills were pretty steep so my dad told me that California has a special breed of cows that have one set of legs that are shorter than the other. This made it possible for them to stand on a slanted hillside and graze all day long. It took me years to figure out he was pulling my leg on that one. I think he scarred me for life.
Vasectomy Group Appointment
The same booklet that offered the non pedaling bike classes also offered Vasectomy Group Appointments. Honestly, I can’t imagine how this would be a good thing even if they gave you a group discount. I’ll pass.
Drivers Ed in Mini Coopers
Finally, as we were driving back to the airport we got behind a Drivers Ed car and as I looked at the car closer I noticed that it was a Mini Cooper. How cool is that. I’ve always wanted to drive a Mini Cooper around but never really wanted to own one. The next time I visit I should probably enroll in Drivers Ed. Maybe I’ll just audit the class so I don’t have to take the test.
Visiting California has always been an adventure for me and this time was no exception. I’m not really ready to move back because I love where I live so I guess for now it will just have to remain a nice place to visit.
5 comments:
Cool post. I like the potpourri style!
When I took driver's ed back in '86, our class used Camaros. It's a marketing thing.
I'm with you on the umbrella bags. CA is trying to eliminate grocery bags, but somehow throwaway umbrella bags make sense? Might as well give out throwaway plastic gloves to everyone putting gas into their Hummer.
Mike, you're a crack up!! By the way, Happy Birthday in 2 days!!!
Can I audit that drivers ed class too. I really want to drive a mini cooper!
Sounds like a good trip Mike. Hope everybody's feeling better.
Thanks for all that info from your trip. Here on the east coast we have a lot of stick figures that appear at a loss as to what to do with their umbrellas and umbrella bags. I wish we had signs like they have so these unfortunate stick figures could be better informed.
The other informative thing was to realize how much money one could save by taking the non-pedaling bike classes. Think of all the money one could save on pedals and bike shoes.
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