we arrived midday or so, and met Wes's friend, Alex, a bartender (and more than likely another Berklee grad -- they seemed to have all flocked to So Cal... understandably so) at the bar where she works, had a beer and planned out the day -- which means, decided to go to the beach :)

amazed by the prevalence of volleyball nets on the beach, not to mention all the activity, we naturally took a nap... followed by ice cream... followed by frisbee play -- this was more of a workout than anticipated (mostly due to our lack of frisbee prowess, although it was rather windy). we attempted to maintain a three frisbee simultaneous toss, but it kept degrading to a battle of who could make the other work the hardest at catching the frisbee. then, a little girl kept retrieving the frisbees for us -- it was adorable, as it was obvious she wanted to throw frisbee but was shy to ask. of course, we invited her to throw, and she got really good at the game of making us work hard to catch the frisbees. after we nearly took off a few people's heads, it was clearly time to move on to other things.

i msg'd my friend from grade school, as she told us that they live in Redondo, and that we should look them up when we got there on Saturday. she responded that they had just made margaritas and ordered pizza, so we should hurry on over. music to a group of traveling musicians' ears! and they were just three miles away :) 

their home is enormous, beautiful and has an incredible roof deck (with a view of the ocean)... and they invited us to stay the night -- which was perfect, as Wes had to drive back to Murrieta that night after our gig, and leave me and Chris somewhere to fend for ourselves. pretty darn generous of a gal i hadn't seen in years and her husband whom i had just met! we were stoked.

so, we ventured over to the coffeehouse -- The Welcome Cafe (they're Myspace friends, too -- check 'um out) -- which was merely another mile or two down the road. our good fortune was incredible at this point :) the was a gal playing when we go there, and an active listening crowd in the space -- felt a good vibe going in. we met Taylor Begert (another recent Myspace friend), who played right before us, and he was very good. then, we played, and it was pretty tight -- very responsive room, and just a cool gig with which to end the tour :)

Chris and i said our sad goodbyes to Wes, thanked him and crashed at our generous hosts' home. the next day proved to extend the adventure, with an additional, unplanned performance, and i'll share it in the next blog...

until then... peace! :)