Sonoma Weekend

Lyne and I had planned to go to Lake Sonoma on Saturday and after thinking about it for a minute, I decided that it might be nice to not have to rush back to the city after spending all day on the beach. So I cancelled my run and my swim and Lyne and I made plans to camp at the only drive in campsite at Lake Sonoma, Liberty Glen.
We got on the road by 10:45-ish and off we went out of the fog. We drove and drove, talked and talked, smoked and smoked (harsh times calls for harsh actions) and got to the Cloverdale area. Now, when we drive up to LS I can never remember the name of the exit, but I know what it looks like and it's usually not a problem. However, and I believe that PMS had a major part of this, I drove right by and we ended up at Fort Bragg. We kept saying, it's not this far is it? And how could we have missed it? So I turned around and headed back south and then we were at Healdsburg (home of the donut muffin) which I knew was way before Lake Sonoma coming north. So I turned around and headed north and took an exit which I am pretty sure was wrong but couldn't figure out where we were supposed to be going...all in all, we wasted about an hour and half and then finally figured it out. Lyne wrote the name of the exit down this time.

We hit the beach and I decided that I would get my swim workout in before too much beer and sun. So I put on my workout suit over my bikini (not a pretty sight) and my goggles and Lyne walked me to the waters edge to wave me off. I planned to swim out 15 minutes and then turn around. I got right in the water swam to the edge of the ropped off area, went under the rope, swam five feet and then felt weeds under there and freaked out and swam back under the rope and back to the shore. That was the end of that.


We played an exhilirating round of Scrabble. Layed around, read, ate chips and then left around 6pm to head to our camp site. Again we were crippled by PMS direction interfering hormones but finally arrived. We drove around til we found a spot. Set up camp and feasted on a dinner of pita sandwiches with tomato, cheese and avocado and after Lyne built a fire, marinated salmon. More cigarettes and beer and then we just looked at each other and said, let's go to bed. It was 9:30pm.

So, I'm not normally a camper. I think I like it and then I get there and am like, what the hell am I doing? It's weird because I don't mind getting dirty etc, but I don't know. I think it has a lot to do with how I sleep. I need a complex equation of head elevation, leg spreadability and spine curvature to get a good nights sleep. A sleeping bag is not conducive to any of my requirements. I woke up in the middle of the night with the most achey back and, before I hit my Indiglo on my watch, prayed that it was at least 5am. It was only 2am. And I had to pee. I decided to just stick it out. Put my hat on and hunkered down. I could hear Lyne waking up a little bit and right at that moment I heard the weirdest rumbling sound. It was as if a giant earthquake was happening and it produced this low rumbling that was heard through out the valley. Heh. I whispered to Lyne, do you hear that? Then it stopped and we fell asleep. At 6am I could hear Lyne coughing and being wrestless and talking to herself about how the ciggies are making her miserable and then I heard her rustle through her bag, fish out the tobacco, actually get out of the tent and dump all the tobacco into the fire pit. HAHAHAHA! I was just rolling my eyes in my half sleepy state. Then she came back and started to talk to me and I was all, hi? Sleeping!

We got up at 8am packed everything up and prepared to head out. I was just M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. My back was killing me, it was cold and gray, my allergies had kicked in and I just wanted coffee. We headed into Healdsburg (home of the donut muffin) to get our coffee, my donut muffins and a little breakfast. I really wanted to go straight home, but we had planned to hit Cailistoga to try and get into Indian Springs spa to soak in a hot spring pool. We get there and are trying to figure out whether we can finagle a discount to the pool, whether we should pay full price or whether we should sneak in when Lyne runs into a woman she used to work with. This woman was there with her husband and they had an extra pass to the pool, which she gave us, scouted the situation and came back to tell us that a teenage boy was working the gate and that we could probably sneak the other of us through.

Which is exactly what we did! Lyne handed him the ticket and asked for a towel and we just walked in. We changed our clothes and stored them in lockers which, right when we shut the doors, realized that we actually needed a key to get our clothes back out. No keys in sight. But we asked the pool boy and he got us keys. We luxuriated by and swam in the hot spring pool, played more Scrabble and drank the cucumber water. We headed out around 2:30pm and after a quick stop at the supermarket for fruit and cold water, drove back to the city.

I was exhausted and sunburnt and after a shower settled in to watch season 2, disc 1 of Arrested Development with my donut muffin!

Pictures here.