Active Wear, Green Candy Canes, and Shampoo-Head

Day 2

35.41 miles

Mom dropped us off at the bike path and took more photos while we grinned our faces off. We talked as we rode and friendly strangers gave us directions when we hadn’t even asked.

We rode into La Jolla on our trusty steeds and glided into a dreamy neighborhood. One home, a Tuscan Villa. Another, some Greek-looking-something with giant columns out front. One straight out of ancient fairy tales with a wavy roof and dark wooden balcony, and then the neighbor was from the future with everything made from shiny steel and tall, tall windows. Fancy ironwork and fake cobblestone streets and unmatched views of the ocean.

My breath stuck behind my teeth, my eyes wide with appreciation.

So beautiful.

Can you imagine living here? I ask Jennie.

I wouldn’t want to live here. Can you imagine having to clean all that glass? Ugh. She says. Always Practical.

We climbed a giant hill. Jennie cruised faster than me and quickly disappeared around the next corner way up there. I sweated my way along. Silently and slowly. My hair so wet with sweat I could smell my shampoo.

A loop started in my head to match the cadence in my feet as they went round and round on the pedals.

Sweaty, sweaty, shampoo-head. Sweaty, sweaty, shampoo-head.

Over and over.

STOP IT. I told my head.

Sweaty, sweaty, shampoo-head. Sweaty, sweaty, shampoo-head.

Rrrr.

I got to the top just in time for my chain to fall off.

I fixed my bike and we cruised down-down-down to Del Mar and found a Starbucks. We set up shop outside under an umbrella and called Mom to see if she wanted to meet us. She’d spent an hour at a Costco trying unsuccessfully to buy a new phone, and was going to go to Best Buy, but instead she headed on over and we all ate peanut butter sandwiches and date bars and coffee and chilled out and eavesdropped on the hoity-toity rich ladies in active wear nearby.

Jennie taught us the song: “Doin’ absolutely nothin’ in my active wear.” And then she showed us the video for the song and we said ‘OMG that’s so true’ a lot, and then it was time to ride.

Mom gave us our rain jackets just-in-case and my butt was having some issues so I grabbed some underwear out of my bag in the back of the car and we got all sorted out, full of gratitude for the Mom SAG Wagon.

We told Mom about the amazing houses and she took off, retracing our bike route to go check them out.

We rode super-fast, feeling free and floaty. We passed giant plants with fuzzy green candy-canes sticking six feet tall out of their middles, and blooming red bougainvillea and plants with drippy yellow flowers. Purple ice plant flowers and pelicans and barking seals.

I got a sunburn on my knee through my cheap spandex pants and laughed because how is that even possible.

The cczzzzzzzz sound that we hear as a pod of zippy cyclists bear down on us and fly past us, unaware that we are all going uphill. And the first guys yell things like “SINGLE FILE” and everyone minds him. Or he yells “HOLD”, whatever that means, and everyone behind him yells the same thing and we don’t hear them until they’re right on top of us and all we hear is HOLD-HOLD-HOLD-HOLD-HOLD-HOLD-HOLD and they’re super loud and they scare me nearly off the road because I’m super involved in singing ‘sweaty, sweaty, shampoo-head. sweaty, sweaty, shampoo-head’.

And we rode straight to our hotel since it was pretty much on-route and poor Mom was stuck in traffic on I-5 and by the time she got there she felt like all she did all day was drive around in circles.

We ate crappy fish tacos in a place that was supposed to have great fish tacos and it was so loud in there after a beautiful day of quiet, my head started to spin and I was happy to retreat back to our quiet hotel room to write and read and visit.

My heart felt all full for Jennie who makes me stop and look around and appreciate where we’re at and points out things like kayaks way out on the horizon and cliffs full of birds. Herons and egrets in grasses in the marshy areas and happy dogs on the beach. Her laugh, bits of music, twinkling in the air.

And it’s impossible not to laugh along.