The Shooting that Changed It All

I didn't live in one place my whole life. I didn't live in the same neighborhood my whole life. I didn't attend the same elementary school from kindergarten to 6th grade. There are numerous times when I thought what life would be like for me if I had never moved and grew up in the same place my whole life.

I don't remember much about being a child, but I remember I was living life and I enjoyed it. I loved playing on the monkey bars so much that my hands would get crispy and dry, but I didn't care I was having fun. I loved hanging out with friends and having fun. I didn't care if I was going to get yelled at or chased around if I sneaked outside of the house. I didn't care much about academics and my mom had to force me to do my homework in many occasions. My brother was praised since he did better than me academically and he is 3 years younger than me. But, that didn't seem to bother me much or encourage me to study. However, someday my mom managed to get me a tutor.

My tutor and I had many of our tutoring sessions just outside of the apartments where I lived. One of the tutoring sessions I remembered she bought expired food and we bought ended up throwing up the whole thing on the lawn. One time I wanted to show my mom this weird thing I caught from the sky, but she brushed it off my fingers. But, there's one memory that I don't think I will ever forget although I was 7 or 8 years old at the time.

One day, me, my tutor, and 2 other friends who live in the apartment complex were outside. Me and a friend was sitting on the grass with the tutor working on something for school and I think hopskotch was also involved somewhere in the mix? All of a sudden, there were a few gun shots that were fired. All of us immediately were on the ground and tried to protect ourselves. I noticed there were probably around 5-10 guys that were probably around their 20s standing around a car and just shooting. When it was all over, no one that I know of was harmed. However, we did notice that some of our cars were shot. My brother was with my mom at the time in my home and they noticed a few gun shots in the home.

That event really scared my mom because after the incident, my mom moved us into a house. Me and my brother were really against it. Even after we had moved, we were begging our home to move back to the apartment where our friends were and such. I missed living in the apartment area. I missed being able to walk easily to the park and I missed the friends that I used to play with. But, since we moved me and my brother were brought to a new area, neighborhood, and new elementary school.

Big Sur Adventures: Mcway WaterFall & Pfieffer Beach

While driving down the coast of highway 1, I determined that people were right by saying that it was a very scenic highway. Although I was driving on a mountain, I didn't find it as intimidating as driving to Santa Cruz. I guess the reason for that might be because there's two lanes on the way to Santa Cruz versus one lane for highway 1. I guess that means I felt less intimidated when I knew I wasn't as cramped and that a car might quickly pass over to me in the left. There were multiple places down the highway that are beautiful and you can just park in the small road if there's any more space left or maybe even a parking lot. Among one of the sights you can see while driving down highway 1 are beaches, whale watching, Bixby bridge and other bridges, national parks, and other sights. If I knew there were more to see in highway 1, I would have planned my trip down there differently.

One of the main reasons why I decided to go to Big Sur this weekend was because I saw beautiful pictures of the place on Pinterest. As part of my personal goals, I want to see more of California, especially its hidden gems. I recently created a "Places to go in California" board and there were a few pins of Big Sur on there. Not to mention whenever I searched through the travel section, Big Sur was a popular one that showed up for places in California.

Among one of the destinations I randomly stopped while I was at highway 1 on route to McWay WaterFalls was this random beach. I tried to look for signs of the name of the beach, but I couldn't find it. But, that beach is absolutely lovely! Well worth the visit!

After parking on the small strip of road, I walked down the path and it led to the beach.

I love that there were multiple kind of rocks on the beach.

As I walked down the beach, I noticed this huge rock in the middle of the beach. I really like it because its a mini waterfall rock in the middle of the beach.

After visiting that beach, me and my friends were on route to meeting my other friends at McWay Falls. Pretty soon we realized that we had no reception and didn't even had reception when we arrived. After I parked, I quickly found where the waterfall was and decided to head there to see if my friends were there, but they weren't. After looking around the area, I determined that they have not arrived yet. So, I decided to stand in the small street parking and across the street from this sign hoping that one of us will notice each other when they drive by.

As I was standing at that spot looking at cars, I noticed a park ranger checking out all the cars and he came around twice, so make sure you are parking correctly if you are parking in the street or to pay your fee if you are parked in the parking lot.

After standing in that spot for a good 15 minutes,  I spotted my friends driving past and I yelled out "HEY!!!," but they just drove off. There I was thinking. "did they hear me or they just went to find parking?" I decided to walk towards their car and noticed they were parking on the small road. I walked up to them and they told me they drove past the destination and was an 1 hour away before they turned back.

There are two routes down to McWay WaterFall trails. One of them is to go down this hill, which was made by tourists and is short and quick. It's pretty dangerous, so if you don't want to risk it, you should take the other path, which isn't that long.

One of them is to walk on the trail that is made where the fee parking lot is located. After walking about 3-5 minutes on the trail, you will walk through this tunnel and keep walking to your right until you see the waterfall.

The stream of the waterfall is pretty small, but the beach and waterfall together is magnificent.

I just love how the water sparkles. It was lovely. It was a great view. Too bad we weren't allowed to go down to the beach.

As I walked down the trail, the view was different and beautiful.

After me and my friends finished touring Mcway Falls, I decided to go to our next destination, which was Pfieffer State Park. I'm glad that I looked at the map a few times before making this trip, as well as the views on the road. Otherwise, without no reception I wouldn't have known my way to Pfieffer State Park unless I bought a map. Unfortunately, since parking was $10, we decided to head to the beach instead. I asked the park ranger for the directions to Pfeiffer Beach and she handed us a small strip of paper with instructions on how to get there. Once we exit out of Pfieffer State Park, we would make a left and continue and pass two openings, but only turn at the second opening, which had a yellow sign "narrow road". While I drove down the narrow road, I noticed how small and windy it was. Also, I noticed there were horses there!

 

As we almost reached the parking lot, a park ranger greeted us and told us that parking was $5. After parking, there was a brief walk to the beach.

 

Imagine seeing that small stream when you first hit that beach and thinking that's the beach? But, luckily, that was not the beach.

Pfieffer beach was one of the places I seen a lot of pictures of on Pinterest. And, I got to say the pictures on Pinterest look better than mine. I think it's the camera and that a lot of them had a picture with the sunset. That being said, I wished I was there when the sun was setting.

Before some of my friends and I went back home, they wanted to eat dinner. We decided on going to this restaurant called Damatra in Carmel, CA. After looking at the menu, I decided I didn't want to get anything, but my two other friends decided to order food. The restaurant seemed perfect for a date.

The ride back home didn't seem as intimidating as I thought it would be. Most of the time, it was only me and this other car ahead of me, which was good because that car provided more light. Also, the road back was just straight roads and I didn't have too turn much at all. I wished I could have looked out the window, while I was driving because there were a lot of stars outside.

Natural Bridges State Beach & The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz

On President's Day, me and a few friends decided to head down to Santa Cruz. It was my second time going to Santa Cruz. The drive there was shorter than I remembered.

Our first destination was Cafe Brasil. I love that cafe. It has a great menu and I like their food. I ordered the Chicken Delight again and got a guava shake. This is the only place I found that offers guava shake or guava juice, which I love!

After eating at Cafe Brasil, we went to Natural Bridges State Beach. I definitely wanted to go to a beach while I was still in Santa Cruz, but didn't want to go to boardwalk again since I already been there. We did try to go to the boardwalk again, but we ran out of time.

There were more people in the beach then I had expected. Maybe it's because I usually go to the beach later on in the day.

What attracted me to this beach was the rock formation! I loved that the beach had it!

Yes, that's me on the rock. I was brave enough to go on it and for a picture. I wish I had taken more photos, but wasn't aware that my friend wasn't screaming at me to do more poses.

After we went to Natural Bridges State Beach, we headed to the Mystery Spot. Once we reached the Mystery Spot, we had no reception, so I was unable to check in on Foursquare or use my data at all.

As part of our tour, we went inside this house. When you are inside, you can take some pretty cool photos. Among one of the things you saw in the house was this picture below.

This ball was one of the demonstrations used as part of the tour. I will leave out why it was part of the tour.

The tour guide we had for the tour was very good. He was friendly and humorous. He made a lot of jokes during his presentations. During one of the demonstrations, he ended up picking me as one of the people to help demonstrate something.

Lastly, we ended the day with food. We first got bakery at 85 degrees C bakery in Newark, CA. Afterwards, we ate dinner at OZ Korean BBQ in Elk Grove.