Somewhat Random

This weekend was a roller coaster of emotion.

First I watch "A River Runs Through It" and desperately want to be in the mountains. Then tonight I watched "A Perfect Storm" and desperately want to move to the ocean. But I'd perfer to stay alive rather then what happened to those guys. I also watched "Spinal Tap" with Aaron and Bobbie which was... unique...

Ocean and mountains... can it get any better then that?

It made me think of one of my highlight moments of life so far. It was a couple years back and I went on a trip to Catalina Island, just about 25 miles off the coast of LA. It was a "ministry" trip, which was actually just a paid vacation. An incredible paid vacation.

By the time this trip came around I knew that I was moving away from Redding and had instituted the "actively enjoy every single moment to the fullest and deepest rule." Which I discovered is a pretty good rule to live your entire life by.

Anyway, this was prime time to activate this rule as I would be driving 10 hours to LA and then spending a weekend on Catalina Island with a small awesome group of people that I had spent two years of my life with. Also I would be fulfilling one of my dreams which was to be so far out on the water that I couldn't see land. I would also be fulfilling a dream of being on an island. I like things like that.

I was quite happy to have Peggy with us. She had grown up in this area and had taken the ferry a billion times. She knew how much I was looking forward to this and showed me all the secrets for enjoying the boat ride over to the fullest. One was standing at the very back of the ferry to let the wind blow in your face and watch the waves go by. Those waves went by at an astounding speed too! Our little ferry went insanely fast.

We got out a ways and into some sort of shipping lane, I guess, because there were tons of MASSIVE ships all around. There were also somewhat large waves. Waves that I was not expecting. I was standing on the back corner of the deck, in awe of fulfilling a dream of mine and taking the scene in - all I could see was water.

That water also seemed to be just as excited and wanted to see me.

I heard all my friends give a blood-curdling scream and I whirled around to see what was wrong. I turned around just in time for a huge wave to break over the side of the boat and land it's fullness directly on my head. Of course, since everyone was paying attention, they got out of the way - somehow... I still don't know how they got away from it. Since I was watching the back of the boat, I just turned and was suddenly soaked straight through and I didn't really know what had happened.

The rest of the ferry sure had a good laugh.

I needed a large "land-lubber" sign, but I suppose me being completely soaked from head to toe was sign enough.

Once we got to Catalina, though, everything was better. We got to swim with incredible fishes that scared Katieann so bad she almost drowned. We would have helped her, but it's hard to swim while laughing so hard. Also the public showers were a blast, especially when the girls ran out of tokens and had to walk out to the front to get more after the water turned off halfway through washing their hair. One of the best parts was walking down to the water-front and searching for the casino that we had heard so much about. We wanted to check this amazing casino out, so we walked all around this massive, breathtaking building and found zero doors to get in. Turns out casino just means "meeting place" in spanish and it was simply a huge ballroom.

Which we got to go into, anyway. We somehow were invited to attend the reception for a massive mexican wedding up in the casino and we got to see the 3rd largest ball-room in the United States and be a part of the thundering loud mexican music that was blasting over the entire island. We had met the best man the day before in a restaruant and he invited us over. We were the only white people amidst about a thousand mexicans! No... we didn't stand out at all.

Still... we got to see the Casino!!

Much more happened that weekend, but it's almost 1:00am now and I think I'll go to bed.