Won't Get Fooled Again

As I drove through the streets of sunny San Diego today, the specific angle of the sun and particular scent of the ocean air took me back in time to my first visit to that fair city.

I was eighteen years old, and after taking a red eye from my home in the Midwest, I headed straight to the beach to spend a few hours while my friend was at work. Not surprisingly, I fell asleep on my towel. Also not surprisingly, my poor pale skin got burned by that powerful Southern California sun. But the magnitude and severity of that burn was quite a shock. My face suffered the worst fate...the blisters were so big that my eyes swelled shut. For the next few days, I ran a fever and did nothing but lie in a darkened room with cool washcloths covering most of my body, and try to convince myself that I didn't need to go to the emergency room.

Sigh. Definitely white girl problems.

Happily, today's visit was much less eventful. With just a few moments to spend, I pulled into a lookout point above Pacific Beach, watched the surfers, and wished I had time to head down to the sand and sit for a spell. But as my eighteen-year-old memories surfaced so poignantly in my mind, I was more than happy to quickly snap a few pics and be on my way.

San Diego, your beaches are spectacular. But I won't get fooled again.