tamara b

SATURDAY the 26th
After a late night, I woke up first thing and went out to visit Grandma Martinez. We chatted for a while and she gave me some tortillas she made me since she heard I was coming to town. While sitting there, I saw this “thing” that is music related (I can’t think of the name for it). She was using to hold letters in. I commented that I liked it since we have a room decorated in music stuff and before I left she gave it to me. I didn’t want to take it but she insisted. When I left, I stopped by Walmart and purchased her a new letter holder.
Yeah, river day! Us girls went floating. Of course it wasn’t that simple though. We started with meeting Nicole at her house @ 1pm. I met Tebbe (Kristine Johnston) at her house and we left to air up the rafts. We stopped at the gas station and Robert, the owner, said to meet him in the back and he’d help us. Well, I went to the back of the shop, grabbed the air tool, attached it to the compressor hose and aired up the rafts. Robert was kinda surprised that I knew what I was doing and so I reminded him that I grew up around that stuff. He chuckled. We then stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite. Let me just remind everyone that I don’t even like Taco Bell. I ate it so much in high school that I wouldn’t go there anymore (except when I was starving in college and had no where else to go on campus). Since I hadn’t had Taco Bell for a few years, it actually sounded good. We rushed to Nicole’s as I ate in Kristine’s truck. We were a few minutes late and thinking that Baker would be ready to walk out the door. Duh, of course she wasn’t; she hadn’t even changed into her tanning suit yet. So, anyway, we finally made it to the river, parked Nicole’s car at Del Rey bridge and then headed for the top. Nicole decided to leave her car unlocked so that her windows wouldn’t get broke in case someone wanted to break in. Only in California! Anyway, we have a nice little float down the river. Not too cold, not too many people. As we were floating, the Workman’s came by on wave runners. [Let me explain all this: We were floating in the lower river where there is no public access for boats etc. When I lived back home, we would spend Sunday afternoons at the Workman’s riding waverunners and splashing all of our floater friends.] All three of us were nervous and just knew we would get soaked. We prepared for the worse: Kristine hid her face, Nicole tried to hide and I got to the outside since I’m the least recognizable. We waited and waited. Finally one guy came back passed us but our buddies never returned. As we floated a little farther (not too far from the bridge) I could hear an alarm going off. I jokingly asked Nicole if she had an alarm on her car and she said no. As we got in sight of the bridge, there was this guy standing looking up river towards us. He shouted out to us and informed us that someone had been up there breaking into vehicles and asked which one was ours. I was a little nervous that he might be the trouble maker and was on the look-out for his buddies. But, as we got out of the river and headed up to the road, we saw that multiple cars had been broke into. Everyone of them, except Nicole’s, had windows broken out. The guy shouting lives around the corner, heard the alarm sounding and headed over. He saw the guys in action, called the Sheriff, etc. The idiots were too stupid to steal Nicole’s cd player. Anyway, we waited for the Sheriffs, gave them the basic information and scurried off. They asked Nicole for her information and she didn’t have her license on her, but at least she has a license now :) She had taken her wallet out and left it in Tebbe’s truck. So, here we stand in front of two sheriffs, none of us with a license on us, and we walk off to the car to leave. A little unnerving!
We got back to the truck and Nicole went home. Kristine and I then stopped by the Workman’s to chat with them. They were quite surprised to see me. I then took Luke’s wave runner out for a short ride. AND, I was nice and didn’t splash any of those floating. Instead, I would slow down as I passed them. When I slowed down for one group, I recognized the guy in the raft. It was my cousin, Chris, and so we chatted for a bit. He was quite surprised to see me on the river, let alone California. Finally I headed back to the house, put the wave runner on the trailer, chatted for a bit longer and went home for a shower.
That night was my relax night. I made a quick run to Walmart, ate a frozen burrito and don’t remember much else.