Today was Andrea’s birthday, so we went out and did some of the things she wanted to do. Things like visit San Carlos mission in Carmel and check out Big Sur. In the process of doing these things, I learned a few lessons.

1. Weather can change in Northern California at the drop of a hat
2. People here cannot drive over 30 miles an hour on a road with more than one turn in it
3. Cars will pull over and do everything short of have a barbecue when search & rescue squads are called in to find someone
4. The town of Lucia, CA consists (from the road at least) of one gas station/restaurant/gift shop and approximately no houses
5. Big Sur is nothing more than one giant nature hike
6. Moxie is only good if you don’t have to swallow it
7. Moxie, after drinking more than two drinks of it, will also make your mouth taste like I imagine the inside of a sphincter to taste like
8. Carmel, CA while boasting of being an “artist colony” is nothing more than a wildlife hippy reserve
9. The aforementioned hippy reserve has quite a few options for shopping at extremely high-end strip malls, go figure

All in all a good day, if not a little humorous in the end.