I Walked From Pacific Beach To Old Town

…and boy are my arms tired

but seriously… I had a culturally fascinating evening. I went to the beach (walked from Garnet and Ingraham to Crystal Pier). The water was choppy, but not bad for sunset. Then I walked south along the boardwalk, watching in turn the Sea World and Ocean Beach fireworks. My camera is acting up I fear. The display failed. I think my media card died or something. I saw tourists. Irish accents. French accents. Cute girls. Bikinis. Families with infants in strollers. Lots of litter. Drunken mustachioed stoners in their 40s. People lighting fireworks. Drunkenness. Rudeness. Extreme friendliness. Real camaraderie. Wishes for a Happy 4th. A mini-rave. LOTS of traffic. So much traffic the buses were barely moving. So I decided to walk all the way to Mission Beach. I actually passed a bus on the way! So my foot speed is maybe what, 3 miles per hour or something (don’t quote me on that please) and I was beating the bus.

And I just kept walking. When I hit Mission Beach, I just kept walking. I thought I could make it to the Tower Records across the street from the Sports Arena. Again, the traffic made this kind of a reasonable thing to do.

There is a problem with doing this much walking though. You need to protect your feet. And I was wearing my beat up old white shoes. And the KEY MISTAKE: I didn’t wear socks.

About halfway through the walk I developed a nasty callus on my left foot. It hurt and still hurts. And I had no band-aids with me. Instead, I actually used some gluestick to secure the raw flap of skin down. The logic here is to just seal the darn thing up and keep walking. It worked marginally.

Anyway, I kept on walking, faster than the traffic leaving the beach areas. Eventually I slowed down, and traffic picked up. I eventually got to Tower Records on Sports Arena Blvd. I hung out there for a little while – a respite. An aside, I hear that the parent company of Tower Records is going out of business. Can anyone verify this?

And I kept on walking. I got a burger at In-N-Out at Rosecrans and Sports Arena. That tasted so good to me. Difficult to describe how good that was. I know it’s just the context of being tired and hurting, but it may have been the best burger I ever ate.

After that it was a quick walk to Old Town, and onto the Trolley, then a connecting bus home.

Lickety split.

The fireworks over OB were cool. The Sea World fireworks were AWESOME. I can see why people brave the idiotic traffic.

I doubt I’ll be doing that next year.

Next time I attempt to walk more than I think I can, I’m gonna wear socks.

I just ran the numbers on a map. I walked 6.2 miles.

It is nice to know that I can do some darn walking if I need to. Even if I have to limp a bit.

I saw so much. More than I can write. But it’s time to sleep.