Day 95, August 21st 2008, beginning and ending in Fresno, California

Marge got up and went to work, while we slept in. When we got up, we ate some of her food, and headed to downtown Fresno with the soccer ball. There wasn't much going on there during the day, so we headed up to the Fresno State area, where I spent most of my time while living there. We jumped on the bus for a dollar. I really despised not having the bike, but Paul was much happier.

First stop was Jamba Juice, where I had countless smoothies in the past. They were especially refreshing in Fresno, because the summertime high is often triple digits. This day was a cool 95.

After Jamba, we went over to Bulldogs stadium, where the division 1 football teams played. I used to run stadiums there as part of a morning workout with some friends. When we got there, we rolled the soccer goals out to the field and began playing. The grounds keeper had a different idea. He thought we were pretty crazy for thinking we could just play soccer on this field, and we found it pretty humorous how mad he was. He was convinced the S.W.A.T. team was coming after us, and he was doing us a favor by shooing us out.

We left the field and headed down Shaw Ave. I called Marshall, an old Fresno friend that I worked out with to tell him about just getting kicked out of Bulldogs stadium. He didn't respond, but another friend, Loren, called back a few minutes later. He wasn't able to get my number from the last message I had left, and was unable to call me back. It made me feel better since I thought people were intentionally not returning my calls. He told me about a bbq they were having at the church that evening. I told him I would run it by Marge and Paul, but would likely see them later. I was happy I would see them, it would have been a shame not to after having come all this way.

Continuing down Shaw, we stopped at the fashion fair mall because my shoes were in such bad shape; I could hardly walk in them. I didn't find a pair of shoes cheap enough, so I stuck with what I had. I couldn't take the annoyance anymore, and took my shoes off and walked barefoot. However, when there was no grass, the pavement and sidewalk were very hot (as I mentioned earlier 95 degrees). It was quite a pain; I needed to resolve the shoe issue soon.

When we got hungry we walked over to the closest In-n-out burger and stuffed our faces. Animal style baby. We caught the bus back to Marge's and she came back from work shortly after we got there. Another old friend Randy was in town, and he was trying to make plans for the evening. We would see if we could squeeze the bbq in beforehand.

Marge got ready to go, like girls do, and Paul and I went as is, like guys do. When we got there, to my surprise, Loren and Kerri had two children since I left. Eli and Asher seemed to be a handful of fun. We ate some food, and caught up on what was going on in one another's lives. After the bbq, they held a college church session which we reluctantly attended. I didn't mean to drag them into it, but would have felt bad leaving then.

After the discourse was over, we played some ping pong with Loren. They also had a drum set that I was banging on while people were trying to carry conversations. It was really fun and made me want to get a drumset.

We made our way out, and I said goodbye to everyone in hopes that I would see them again before we got out of Dodge. We rolled over to some bar where we met Randy, another one of Marge's friends who I befriended 3 years back. We had a good time at the bar. It was another one where they served free peanuts. I love those places… and peanuts. Marge had such a good time that I ended up having to drive us home. In the car ride home we belted out some songs as we rode back across town.

Everyone fell asleep shortly after we got back. Earlier in the night I was able to convince Marge to let us borrow her car to go to Sequoia National Park. Goody goody gumdrops.

Life was good.