Josh California Day Two (Monday)

We woke up the next morning, got on our swimsuits, ate some cereal, and then headed out to see the tide pools at 9:30. The plan was to go to the beach that day. At the tide pools, there were crabs everywhere on the rocks, so we all caught some and took pictures with them. There were also some sea anemones which were really sticky to touch. It was me, Kamen, Caden, Caden’s mom, and Julie. Kevin stayed back at the house.

We were just about ready to leave when Julie called out from behind us to come look at something. The big thing my family found last time at the tide pools (when we visited our cousins in California) was a baby Octopus. This time it was a giant sea slug. Julie pointed to under the shade of a rock, where a black sea slug was barely noticeable. We decided to pull it out to get a closer look, and get some pictures with it, so Kamen tried to pull it out from under the rock. Well, it’s grip on the rock was so good and sticky, that it took Kamen like 5 minutes to pull it out. (Kamen was the only one that dared touch it.) Once he got it out, we all took turns holding it and taking pictures with it. It was really slimy to touch, and it seemed like my hands were sinking into its skin. It must have weighed at least 2 or 3 pounds. After showing other people who wanted to see the slug, we put it back in it’s home and then left for the beach.

Before leaving for the beach, there was a tiny little beach by the tide pools, too rocky to play in, but it had sand. Caden and Kamen showed me how to catch sand crabs, which are the little dimples in the sand that we could see when the water recedes from the shore. All we had to do was spot a dimple in the sand, then dig our hands deep into it and the crab would usually be in the clump of sand that we were holding, and it would dig down as deep as it could until it made it to the hand, or he flipped the sand over, making it dig upwards. There had to be thousands of those crabs on the little beach, but there weren't as many when we got to the actual beach, although there were still some. We parked in the beach parking lot, and then walked down with our boogie boards down to the beach. The beach that we were at was called SaltCreek Beach. It was about 15 minutes from Julie’s house.

I had never been boogie boarding before and so it was a new experience for me. They taught me how and it wasn’t that hard. All I had to do was wait for a wave, and then when it crashed and started coming towards me, and it got close enough, I jumped on the board forward towards the shore and away from the wave. Then the wave caught up to me and pushed me back to shore. The important thing though is to get the wave after it crashes, or else it is way more likely to get knocked off the board. And it’s also important to keep the board angled upward, or else the board would get in the sand and fling you off. We boogie boarded for a long time, and we all had a couple pretty bad crashes. I had one crash where I messed up, and another where the wave was way too big, so it just launched me in the air.

Caden also brought a skimboard, so we did that a lot on the shore too, but we did that more the second day on the beach and not as much the first day. We also body surfed and just swam in the water with the waves. It made our legs really tired from just standing in the water and resisting the current for so long. It’s pretty crazy how far out the beach goes without getting that deep. My favorite waves were the waves that hadn’t crashed yet, so the momentum would just push us. We were probably at the beach for like 5 hours. Our next plan was to go home, shower, and then eat dinner at a restaurant called Wahoo’s. So we went home and took showers, but Caden wanted to go shop at a store called Tilly’s before dinner. Apparently Tilly’s is a pretty popular clothing store, but they don’t have one in St. George. So after we all showered off, we got ready and went to Tilly’s.

Caden’s mom was with him, so he was trying on all the clothes and basically going back to school shopping. Me and Kamen only had a certain amount of money that we brought, so we had to be more careful about spending. Since Caden was occupied with trying on clothes, me and Kamen went to look at other things. Kamen noticed that the sunglasses were only ten dollars, which is actually a pretty good deal for a nice pair of sunglasses. But after we got closer to the sunglasses, we saw that it said 2 for 15 dollars. So the two of us decided to both get a pair, and then split the cost. I got some sunglasses that have that reflective purple look on the lenses, and the outside were a pretty cool wood design. Kamen got some that were thin, completely silver, and it had mirror lenses. Basically something a police officer would wear.

After buying the glasses, I proceeded to look at shirts, since Kamen and Caden really wanted me to get a name brand shirt. Apparently I don’t dress trendy enough… Kamen went to look at shoes and other things, and I found a turquoise name brand shirt that was actually really cool. It had long sleeves and it was only 15 dollars, which is actually a really great deal for a name brand shirt, so I got it. I didn’t really want to spend anything else at Tilly’s since we were still early on in the trip. I did find some cool Vans socks and a Vans shirt, but I decided to save my money for when we went to the pier the next day. As we were about to leave, Julie was there too, and Julie said, in a completely sarcastic and kidding voice, “I guess you guys could buy a chain.” Well, I guess she didn’t know that wearing a chain was actually something that people do as a trend now. So Kamen decided to get one, and Caden tried to persuade his mom to buy him one, although it was pretty hopeless. I didn’t really want a chain, but Kamen wanted all of us to buy a chain really bad for some reason.

I guess so he wouldn’t feel left out while wearing it out in public. I still didn’t get one though. Caden ended up buying quite a bit of clothes, since his mom was there. After shopping, we went to go pick up Kevin, and then went over to Wahoo’s. We parked somewhere, and then we had to walk up to Wahoo’s. On the walk there, we stopped at a bunch of other little stores, including a candy store with a HUGE variety of different things. It smelled so good in that store. Caden’s mom bought us some salt water taffy, because we could pick out a ton of different flavors. After we got enough, they weighed it for the price. Wahoo’s wasn’t my favorite restaurant, because it was basically seafood mixed with mexican, which is not very appealing to me. I ended up just getting a classic bean and cheese burrito. On the way home, it was starting to get dark, and Julie decided to have us stop at a drugstore to get some tubs of ice cream. After we all had some ice cream and talked for a little bit, the adults went to bed, and me, Kamen and Caden played masterpiece until like 12:30 again.