Balboa Island as wonderful as I remember…

GREAT DAY WITH VISTING KNOXVILLE TENNESEE FRIENDS

This was a wonderful day!!!!

I had put a status update on my Facebook asking anyone if they wanted to go deep sea fishing. Of course the funny friends that I have in Tennessee took the opportunity to post remarks saying to “PICK ME, PICK ME”. My friend Mark replied saying he would like to go and would I want to go Thursday or Friday of the upcoming week. Well I figured he was joining the funny guy bandwagon since he lives in Knoxville. Luckily he wasn’t. It happens that he and his wife, Norene, were coming out to visit his parents for a few days in Laguna Beach the following week. We decided on Thursday and that we would go out of Davey’s Locker in Newport Beach. We were both really excited.

The following Thursday they picked me up at  Laurel’s – my couch surfing host – house in Costa Mesa for our adventure. When we got to the pier we parked and decided that it would be a blast to take the ferry to Balboa Island for the day instead of fishing. All thought it was a great idea. We walked over to the pier and were shocked that it was still just a $1. Once all the way to the other side…about a three minute ride…we got off the ferry and began a walk around the entire island.

We caught up on all the happenings in Knoxville. Talked about our families. I know Mark as one of my favorite members at the YMCA in Knoxville. I am used to seeing him every day and look forward to his smile, but we haven’t had time to really get to know about each other’s families and such. This was a great time to do just that. Norene is such a beautiful and sweet person. She added to the day perfectly.  They have done work to their home and knew different structure details we saw around the island that they kindly explained to me.

The island was so pretty. Norene made the comment that it must be some kind of law in Balboa that everyone had to have a gorgeous yard and beautiful flowers. AMAZING. We took so many pictures of homes and gardens and statues.

There was one especially cool statue of four kids playing. The one on top appears to be on a wave. Then there is a boy a level down and a boy on the back that is climbing up and covered in real greenery, but the one that I was so taken with was the girl at the bottom. Everything on this statue was extremely detailed right down to the folds in the Converse tennis shoes. The statue is dedicated by the artist to remind all to embrace the sweetness and simpleness of youth. The one unusual and unique and most detailed part of it was the bronzed minnow floating almost dead-like at the girl’s foot. Norene and I were taken with it and were taking pictures when Mark pointed out that it was indeed a real dead minnow. Our bad.

After walking all over the island and enjoying all the scenery we decided to go to the main street and get some lunch. Of all the wonderful smelling places we choose an adorable Italian place called Basilic. So awesome. My mouth waters now thinking back on it. We all had different food and everything was very good. I had the seafood pasta and gotta say mine was the BEST!!! We had a couple of beers and wine and then set off again.

As we began back to the ferry we were throwing around ideas of what to do next. We had thought of renting bikes or something with some excercise. As we were going back and forth with ideas we went into a little local market. There we, Mark I seem to remember, brought up the best idea….buying imported beer and wine and going to the beach and playing for a couple of hours. So that is exactly what we did!

GREAT IDEA!!! So relaxing. We drank and played by the edge of the water. We, Mark and I, have missed the energy and overall feel of the Pacific Ocean so much in the past few years. Mark even went completely in. And was very thankful that he did.

Reluctantly we had to leave about 5pm. I had plans to go out with Laurel that night and didn’t want her to have to wait on me…

My next stop DISNEYLAND…