Part Six of Joan and Amy's Adventures in San Diego: Four Dollar Toast is Fabulous

"Good morning, my name is Bobby and I'll be your server today."

"Good morning, Bobby," I replied, "We'll be having a kayak rental's worth of breakfast today. We'll start with 2 four dollar and fifty cent glasses of your freshly-squeezed orange juice and an order of your finest four dollar toast, my good man."

Joan and I had decided to spend the day at La Jolla (NOT pronounced with a J--WHY did I decide to take French in high school?!?!!) to tour the sea caves and frolic with the seals and sea lions via kayak tour. Sounds pretty magical, right? Sigh. Never believe the interweb.

So Sydney nervously dropped us off on her way to work. "Are you sure about this?" she asked, "Nine hours is a long time." We assured her that we were excited about our upcoming adventures and not to give us a second thought. We decided to check out the seals first where Joan conducted an extensive scent analysis.

"They smell horrible," Joan grimaced.

"You're from Wyoming County," I said accusingly, "You grew up on a farm."

"Cows and chickens smell like a rose garden compared to this," she gasped.

I was undeterred. "Take my picture," I begged. As we had arrived at the break of dawn it was just us, sleepy sea lions, and insane swimmers. "A little to the left..." Joan advised as a man emerged from the Pacific and stomped towards us. Let's just say there was NO resemblance to Daniel Craig from Casino Royal. Yes, I interrupted my writing to quick watch the clip from Youtube. Judge me all you want. He (the insane swimmer, not Daniel Craig) warned us about getting too close to the seals. The man who was SWIMMING with the seals was warning us about the dangers of seal proximity. I thanked him (the insane swimmer, not Daniel Craig...but remind me later...I DO need to send Daniel Craig a thank you note), high-fived my sea lion friend and marched off. Kidding. I also saw the video of the sea lion who practically ripped off that little girl's arm to drag her to the murky depths of the ocean floor so I have a healthy respect for sea lion proximity.

After Joan lost her second pair of sunglasses (I think they're with all the partner-less dryer socks on some remote island in the Philippines), we headed around the cove to find the kayak rental place. The walk gave us some perspective. "What is the width of the water?" I wondered, "One? Two hundred feet?" We watched as the tour guide stopped the group well outside the sea cave entrance. "Don't we get to paddle INTO the sea cave? I asked. "What's with the dumb helmet? It's not exactly white water rapids out there." We located the venue and were pleased that there were several openings. We were NOT pleased that the cost was comparable to a ticket to Disney. "It's cheaper if we rent a tandem kayak," I told Joan. "Don't even think about it," Joan scoffed, "I know how that story would play out." We decided to head to breakfast instead. "Can we just sit here for nine hours?" I asked Bobby.

"Just rent a kayak and go out by yourselves," Bobby advised, loading us up on Belgium waffles topped with bananas, candied walnuts, Chantilly cream, and REAL maple syrup. We gave Bobby a brief tutorial about real maple syrup. "Vermont is sending you their dregs," Joan explained, holding up her tar-colored container of syrup. Bobby nodded, obviously concerned. I had read the signs about paddling out into restricted waters and was scared of being arrested by the water police. "We're going to hike Expedition Way to see the secret swings," I told him. Bobby looked alarmed. "That's a long hike," he said. I nodded, taking a bite of the most delicious four dollar toast in the world (Did you see the picture?). "I think they took those swings down," he said desperately. I frowned, disappointed. "But it was on my list."

"List? What list? Let me see." Bobby scanned my paper and began muttering, "No...no-no-no-no." He turned back to me. "Can't you just hang out at the beach?"

I spotted a young man zipping by on a one-wheeled motorized skateboard. "Where can we rent those?" I asked excitedly. Bobby pulled a set of keys from his pocket and thrust them at us. "Here. Hang out at my apartment. I have Netflix."

But no. Instead we decided to hike the seven miles of coastline back to the sea cave. Joan was impressed with my endurance. "I think I see shade ahead," I'd gasp and lurch forward. At one point, we shared the shade of a telephone pole in our attempt to escape the sweltering sun. We arrived at the entrance of the sea cave where we first argued about the purchase of water. "It's tepid," I complained, my face flushed fire-engine red. "It doesn't matter," Joan said, wrestling the bottle from my shaking hands. "I will NOT pay two dollars for warm water," I stated emphatically, my vision blurring a bit. "You just paid four dollars for toast," Joan responded. I was feeling light-headed. "It had Nutella on it," I yelled.

Re-hydrated and no longer experiencing hallucinations ("Was I hallucinating or did I pay two dollars for warm water?" I asked Joan when I regained consciousness on a park bench later. "Let it go already," she sighed.), we made a decision about the sea cave based on an informal poll. "Don't go down there," a man with three kids who had just emerged told us, terror blanketing his face. Sydney called on her lunch-break, offering to pick us up but we assured her that we were having a marvelous time. "What are you going to do now?" she asked. We heard her friend Kasey in the background screaming NOT to go into the sea cave. The reported one hundred and forty-five steps decided it for us. "That's one hundred and forty-five steps down," I said, my voice shaking, "and one hundred and forty-five steps up." Joan and I stared out in silence, over the ocean. "That's a lot of steps."

"What did you do next?" Sydney asked later, horrified by our recounting. "We took a nap in La Jolla park and began rationing our Wether's Originals. "You slept in a park?" Sydney gasped. "Yup. On my Winnie-the-Pooh towel." We'd walked the beach. Were lured into a restaurant by a sign promising gelato cookie sandwiches but turns out it was a bait-and-switch and only served healthy teas and smoothies with names like butt-buster promising to sooth my chi. Chi/schmee. Naturally, we stormed out. We ended up soothing our chi with strawberry milkshakes before Savannah saved us...er...I mean picked us up from La Jolla. We have GOT to learn how to Uber.