Journal Challenge Day 22: A Funny Story.
My last post got pretty serious so I thought now was a good time to use this prompt. Lighten up the mood a little bit. So this is the story about my 21st birthday. You're probably thinking "Oh 21st birthday, it's some story about being drunk or partying" you're wrong. It's way better than that. Literally this whole trip was a fucking shit show.
Birthdays are a sore spot of me, so my boyfriend at the time wanted to make it special. It's probably the most memorable one so far. So all I wanted for my birthday was to go to a sandy beach. That's it. That's all I wanted. So my ex and I decided to go to California. Before we left we sweet-talked his friend into cat sitting our two babies while we were gone, we would only be gone a couple days so he didn't mind. Me, being the slightly OCD person that I am, wrote out instructions for the cats and the fish and the house. I wrote 3 pages worth of notes, and I wrote them in cursive. I gave them to him right before we were about to leave and he told me that he could not read cursive... I guess they don't teach that in America? So already my anxiety about this trip has skyrocketed and we haven't even left the house yet.
So we get in the car, and we're cruisin', I stayed awake for most of the trip, which is not normal for me. The second I'm in the car (Not when I'm driving, obviously) I pass out. We make it to Long Beach, Washington and we decided to stop and go to the beach, it was closed. So that was a bummer. We keep driving and I passed out, Cam took highway 101, the scenic route, even though it was night time and we couldn't see anything. So all of a sudden he slams on the brakes which naturally makes me wake up. All I see in front of me is an upside-down van, the windows were all broken, there was glass and debris everywhere, and then this guy crawls out of the back with half a cigarette in his hands. I shit you not, this actually fucking happened. How that smoke survived the accident I have no idea. He starts walking toward our car and Cam starts to drive away from him. So I'm like "What the fuck, we should help him?" Cam rolls his window down, just a crack, yells "You good?" The dude yells "yeah" and we drive away leaving him there. So again I'm like what the actual fuck is happening right now. Cameron continues to explain to me that the guy is probably on some shit. So we call the cops and stay close by. So by this time Cam and told me what happened. We were driving behind this guy and he didn't have his lights on, It's like 2 am and it's pitch black, why do you not have your lights on? So Cameron turns our high beams on to try to help him see, but instead the guy just speeds up and so Cameron speeds up. Then because the guy was going too fast he hit and bounced off of a guard rail and then flipped his van. So we keep pulling U-turns to go back and make sure this guy hasn't been hit. His van is in the middle of the road and it's dark as fuck. I was scared someone else was going to hit it. The cops finally get there, and we chat with them, tell them what happened, they catch the guy. They tell us that he is a 'regular' confirm that he is indeed on some shit. So they let us continue on with our trip. Meanwhile, I'm still like what the actual fuck is happening right now. Safe to say I didn't fall back asleep.
We stopped in a few places, one of them being Cannon Beach because I love it there. I got to put my feet in the sand. It was amazing, to cold to swim though.
We also went to the Tillamook factory and ate our weight in cheese samples. Naturally I made a fart joke when we came across the cheese cutter. So at the Tillamook factory, they have this half car thing in the wall, that you can take pictures in. I wanted a picture of us in this. We are going to be that kind of tourist. So we ask this man if he could take a picture of us in it. He says he's not good with cameras so his daughter would do it. This girl, omg, she was not having it. You could see it on her face, this bitch did not give a single shit about taking this picture. She snapped three pictures, gave us our phone back, and walked away. She never said a word the whole time. So we immediately look at these pictures and in every single one, Cameron's face is behind the piece of the car that separates the windows. You can see him but not well. Instead of asking someone else to take a better one. We just cracked up and left. I wish I had that picture to show you but they were on his phone.
Continuing to drive south, we see palm tree which I've never seen before, that was cool. We also jammed out to "In da club" because if you don't listen to that at least once on your birthday, did you even have a birthday? We get to California, we don't go very far into it. We stayed in Crescent City. Which is kind of dumpy, not gonna lie. But we were tired. and we wanted to go to the trees of mystery the next day.
This was the view from our room, I sat out here and drank my coffee in the morning.
There was a Mexican restaurant close to our hotel and I'm not big on Mexican food but it was the only thing that looked halfway decent in Crescent City. So we went there, the food was good, I had my first (legal) drink.
My very first drink, as an adult, was a cheap glass of wine from a Mexican restaurant. Like that's so randomly fucking weird that I'm not even disappointed. I wanted dessert because it's my birthday and yeah that's the only reason. So we get the dessert menu and they have cannolis! I've never had a cannoli in my life and I've wanted one ever since I watched my first episode of Cake Boss. At this point in time the thought of how strange ordering a cannoli from a Mexican restaurant was, did not go through my mind. It wasn't until I took a bite and immediately wanted it out of my mouth that I was like why the fuck would you order something as Italian so a fucking cannoli from a Mexican restaurant. Girl, why did you do this? Cuz you a dumb bitch, that's why.
Oh did I mention it was cold as fuck in Cali? Yeah it was. My birthday is in the dead of summer and it was like 90 some odd degrees in Bellingham, so we thought it was gonna be hot as shit in Cali. We packed shorts and a dress, I bought a new bathing suit and it was really fucking cold. We didn't bring sweaters. So the next day we try to go to the beach because that was my birthday wish. This was in the midst of all the California fires so it was smokey and raining everywhere. here's a picture of that.
So due to the fires and the smoke and the air quality, the beaches were closed. We drove all the way to California to go to the beach and it's fucking closed? Excuse you. What even is this trip. So we go to the trees of mystery which is like $18 a person. Ridiculous. But we still did it. We bought overpriced sweaters from the gift shop, because it was still cold as shit and they were cute, we were, of course, a couple so we got matching ones.
Here's a picture of me being cold as shit, in my overpriced tourist sweatshirt in front of a big ass tree. What a life. So you can take a gondola up to this other part of the forest, which we did. It was just the two of us and I was hoping for a cute romantic trip up but the guide person put another guy in our little buggy thing, whatever it's called. Even though that ruined the idea in my head that I had, he was awesome and made it so much better. I do not remember his name. I wish I did, sorry dude. Thanks for being an awesome bucket-mate.
After that we went to see that tree that you can drive through. That was probably the most anti-climatic thing I've ever done in my life. You pay $5 to sit in your own car and drive through a tree. That's it. Let me explain my thought process through this experience. "$5 that's not bad. Oh there's the tree. We are driving through the tree. Please don't let the tree take out my mirrors. We are out of the tree. Wow." That is exactly what happened. If you ever feel like throwing away $5 and being bored as shit the whole time, drive through the tree.
We go back to the hotel and dethaw. There was a jacuzzi tub in there so I took advantage of that. The next day we started driving home, I was pretty bummed that we didn't get to go swimming, I bought a new bathing suit guys like I was ready. As we're driving we go through Grants Pass Oregon, Cam looks up places to go swimming, he finds a YMCA. So that's where we go swimming. After all that driving to go swimming at a sandy California beach, we end up at a fucking YMCA in Grant Pass. What the fuck.
We're swimming, alternating between the hot tub and the pool, getting yelled at by pool police for doing literally anything. Before we leave we go in the hot tub one more time, and we discuss getting ice cream, we don't know our way around grants pass at all. There's another person in there with us, he's a super cute old man. He had a pacemaker and I don't know if excessive heat effects that but he was in there the whole time we were there. Which was like an hour and a half. Whatever. So we ask this old man where we should get ice cream. Now he looks like the kind of grandpa that would call you something like sweet princess or give $50 bills for no reason okay? So we ask him and his response still kills me. Now you can't hear me say this in a voice similar to his, so just imagine you're in the '70s talking to someone who's higher than shit. He says "Oh man, yeah, Baskin robbins man." I don't know how Cameron had the brainpower to respond and say thank you because I was again like what the actual fuck is happening right now. Even still I can't believe that that voice came out of that man. It was a complete brain fuck.
So he gives us directions to basking robbins, even though we have google maps, but thank you, sir. We order our icecream and sit. Then Cameron says "The girl you served us likes you." and I was like what? and he says "Yeah she checked you out a few times." I don't know if my gaydar is broken or what happened there but I looked back at her and sure as shit she was looking at me and waves. So I wave back awkwardly. I'm sorry, I don't play for that team, however, if you want to give me an extra scoop because you think I'm cute, that would be cool.
That's the story of my 21st birthday, the whole damn thing was pretty much "What the actual fuck is happening right now?" I'm not even disappointed, at all, I love this story. It's so fucked up in every way. Did I mention I was sick the whole time? I head a head cold, was living on Dayquil.
Thanks for reading, I hope you laughed. I did.
-Courtney
Birthdays are a sore spot of me, so my boyfriend at the time wanted to make it special. It's probably the most memorable one so far. So all I wanted for my birthday was to go to a sandy beach. That's it. That's all I wanted. So my ex and I decided to go to California. Before we left we sweet-talked his friend into cat sitting our two babies while we were gone, we would only be gone a couple days so he didn't mind. Me, being the slightly OCD person that I am, wrote out instructions for the cats and the fish and the house. I wrote 3 pages worth of notes, and I wrote them in cursive. I gave them to him right before we were about to leave and he told me that he could not read cursive... I guess they don't teach that in America? So already my anxiety about this trip has skyrocketed and we haven't even left the house yet.
So we get in the car, and we're cruisin', I stayed awake for most of the trip, which is not normal for me. The second I'm in the car (Not when I'm driving, obviously) I pass out. We make it to Long Beach, Washington and we decided to stop and go to the beach, it was closed. So that was a bummer. We keep driving and I passed out, Cam took highway 101, the scenic route, even though it was night time and we couldn't see anything. So all of a sudden he slams on the brakes which naturally makes me wake up. All I see in front of me is an upside-down van, the windows were all broken, there was glass and debris everywhere, and then this guy crawls out of the back with half a cigarette in his hands. I shit you not, this actually fucking happened. How that smoke survived the accident I have no idea. He starts walking toward our car and Cam starts to drive away from him. So I'm like "What the fuck, we should help him?" Cam rolls his window down, just a crack, yells "You good?" The dude yells "yeah" and we drive away leaving him there. So again I'm like what the actual fuck is happening right now. Cameron continues to explain to me that the guy is probably on some shit. So we call the cops and stay close by. So by this time Cam and told me what happened. We were driving behind this guy and he didn't have his lights on, It's like 2 am and it's pitch black, why do you not have your lights on? So Cameron turns our high beams on to try to help him see, but instead the guy just speeds up and so Cameron speeds up. Then because the guy was going too fast he hit and bounced off of a guard rail and then flipped his van. So we keep pulling U-turns to go back and make sure this guy hasn't been hit. His van is in the middle of the road and it's dark as fuck. I was scared someone else was going to hit it. The cops finally get there, and we chat with them, tell them what happened, they catch the guy. They tell us that he is a 'regular' confirm that he is indeed on some shit. So they let us continue on with our trip. Meanwhile, I'm still like what the actual fuck is happening right now. Safe to say I didn't fall back asleep.
We stopped in a few places, one of them being Cannon Beach because I love it there. I got to put my feet in the sand. It was amazing, to cold to swim though.
We also went to the Tillamook factory and ate our weight in cheese samples. Naturally I made a fart joke when we came across the cheese cutter. So at the Tillamook factory, they have this half car thing in the wall, that you can take pictures in. I wanted a picture of us in this. We are going to be that kind of tourist. So we ask this man if he could take a picture of us in it. He says he's not good with cameras so his daughter would do it. This girl, omg, she was not having it. You could see it on her face, this bitch did not give a single shit about taking this picture. She snapped three pictures, gave us our phone back, and walked away. She never said a word the whole time. So we immediately look at these pictures and in every single one, Cameron's face is behind the piece of the car that separates the windows. You can see him but not well. Instead of asking someone else to take a better one. We just cracked up and left. I wish I had that picture to show you but they were on his phone.
Continuing to drive south, we see palm tree which I've never seen before, that was cool. We also jammed out to "In da club" because if you don't listen to that at least once on your birthday, did you even have a birthday? We get to California, we don't go very far into it. We stayed in Crescent City. Which is kind of dumpy, not gonna lie. But we were tired. and we wanted to go to the trees of mystery the next day.
There was a Mexican restaurant close to our hotel and I'm not big on Mexican food but it was the only thing that looked halfway decent in Crescent City. So we went there, the food was good, I had my first (legal) drink.
Oh did I mention it was cold as fuck in Cali? Yeah it was. My birthday is in the dead of summer and it was like 90 some odd degrees in Bellingham, so we thought it was gonna be hot as shit in Cali. We packed shorts and a dress, I bought a new bathing suit and it was really fucking cold. We didn't bring sweaters. So the next day we try to go to the beach because that was my birthday wish. This was in the midst of all the California fires so it was smokey and raining everywhere. here's a picture of that.
So due to the fires and the smoke and the air quality, the beaches were closed. We drove all the way to California to go to the beach and it's fucking closed? Excuse you. What even is this trip. So we go to the trees of mystery which is like $18 a person. Ridiculous. But we still did it. We bought overpriced sweaters from the gift shop, because it was still cold as shit and they were cute, we were, of course, a couple so we got matching ones.
We go back to the hotel and dethaw. There was a jacuzzi tub in there so I took advantage of that. The next day we started driving home, I was pretty bummed that we didn't get to go swimming, I bought a new bathing suit guys like I was ready. As we're driving we go through Grants Pass Oregon, Cam looks up places to go swimming, he finds a YMCA. So that's where we go swimming. After all that driving to go swimming at a sandy California beach, we end up at a fucking YMCA in Grant Pass. What the fuck.
We're swimming, alternating between the hot tub and the pool, getting yelled at by pool police for doing literally anything. Before we leave we go in the hot tub one more time, and we discuss getting ice cream, we don't know our way around grants pass at all. There's another person in there with us, he's a super cute old man. He had a pacemaker and I don't know if excessive heat effects that but he was in there the whole time we were there. Which was like an hour and a half. Whatever. So we ask this old man where we should get ice cream. Now he looks like the kind of grandpa that would call you something like sweet princess or give $50 bills for no reason okay? So we ask him and his response still kills me. Now you can't hear me say this in a voice similar to his, so just imagine you're in the '70s talking to someone who's higher than shit. He says "Oh man, yeah, Baskin robbins man." I don't know how Cameron had the brainpower to respond and say thank you because I was again like what the actual fuck is happening right now. Even still I can't believe that that voice came out of that man. It was a complete brain fuck.
So he gives us directions to basking robbins, even though we have google maps, but thank you, sir. We order our icecream and sit. Then Cameron says "The girl you served us likes you." and I was like what? and he says "Yeah she checked you out a few times." I don't know if my gaydar is broken or what happened there but I looked back at her and sure as shit she was looking at me and waves. So I wave back awkwardly. I'm sorry, I don't play for that team, however, if you want to give me an extra scoop because you think I'm cute, that would be cool.
That's the story of my 21st birthday, the whole damn thing was pretty much "What the actual fuck is happening right now?" I'm not even disappointed, at all, I love this story. It's so fucked up in every way. Did I mention I was sick the whole time? I head a head cold, was living on Dayquil.
Thanks for reading, I hope you laughed. I did.
-Courtney
