RoadTrip - Day 9

West Coast - We arrive in Venice CA at 5:45 AM saturday morning. We're staying with Tim's friend Dan from philly. He's got an amazing place with enough couches/beds for all of us. We stumble in like a bunch of hobos; sick, tired, and wired (Jake's been main-lining coffee and can't stop shaking). Dan greets us with open arms despite waking him up at the ass crack of dawn. The first thing he says to me is "Hey I'm Dan. Make yourself at home, what's mine is yours. Go grab a beer from the fridge and meet us out on the deck." Yeah beers at 6am, it's gonna be that kinda trip. After we finish our beers we finally get to sleep. We have officially traveled across the country.



Venice Beach - The next morning we slowly wake up, get ready and head out for a relaxing day on the beach. We walk down to famous Venice beach right past muscle beach. The beach isn't too crowded because apparently it's a horrible, cold and overcast day in SoCal. It's sunny in the low 70's with a few clouds in the sky. Yeah, I don't know how these people can live in these conditions. We lay in the sun, swim in the pacific, and play frisbee on the beach. It was my stereotypical vision of what living in southern california is like, and it was exactly what we needed. Tim, Jake, and I were by far the 3 whitest guys on the beach. I was probably the fairest of the bunch. I may have accidentally blinded a little kid when he looked directly at my legs. I put so much 30 sunblock on I probably could have survived a nuclear detonation. But hey, I didn't get burned and that was my number one priority.



The Red Garter pt 1 - That night Karl (another friend from philly) comes over and we all go out to a club called the Red Garter. Before we go, Jake decides to prepare by drinking a bottle of tabasco. I (and his digestive system) wish i was kidding. I'm not sure if the Red Garter is a typical club in SoCal or not but I'm not handling it well. Not sure if it's my cold or something else but as soon as I get in I feel like I'm gonna die. Inside, the bar's about 190 degrees. I kept expecting to see people spontaneously combust. The music was so loud I continuously checked my ears to see if they were bleeding. Outside, there's a hundred people shoulder to shoulder smoking like chimneys. I can't breathe in either extreme. I go to the bathroom and my face is pouring sweat. I wash up and consider sitting in the bathroom for an hour since its by far the most comfortable spot in the place. I rejoin the party, talk to a few people, almost throw up on one of them, and then decide it's time for me to leave. Jake, Tim, Dan, and Karl party late into the night. Jake forgets to grab his card at the end of the night to close out his tab. I consider it lucky that was our only casualty.