Lost

by Lauren Barken

Replaying the idea in my head made it sound more realistic and believable. Practicing what I was going to say one last time helped me feel ready.

“Hey John, this is Lauren. I don’t think I can hang out today, I’m not feeling good.”

“Oh, yeah, I understand. That’s fine.” John said with the sound of utter disappointment slipping from his lips.

Sudden guilt shot up my legs straight to my stomach. I began to twist in emotional knots. I felt terrible. I couldn’t believe that I was turning down such a nice guy. I had known John for about a year so I didn’t think that it would be such a bad thing. I turned to look at my good friend Aicha for some reassurance; she smiled and said this was going to be a fun day!

With directions, a full tank of gas, the sun shining, and techno blasting, we were off to a beautiful day at Stinson Beach. Driving fast on the freeway a rush of excitement ran threw my body. The guilt slowly began to fade. Suddenly the traffic began the slow down, large trucks honking, trying to switch lanes were a bit of a challenge. I carefully moved over to the cash only lane because unfortunately we didn’t have the lucky Fasttrack pass to not pay for the bridge. So I had to pay four dollars out of my money to pay for the bridge. Waiting in line, I glanced over at the driver to my right and saw an old lady with a red clown nose and a straw hat with poorly glued flowers. Before I could say anything, Aicha burst out laughing and right away I knew we were laughing at the same thing.

I handed the grumpy women the inconvenient four dollars, “Have a nice day” she said in an unpleasant monotonous voice. Now the adventure truly began. Double checking what exit we had to get off at as we got closer and closer to getting off the treacherously long bridge. At last we saw the green exit sign for Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Following the ramp off the freeway, we merged onto US-101 South. We stayed on this road for about four miles. When I saw the boats and the large anchor I began to get exited because I knew we were going the right way. When the freeway turned into four lanes, we knew we had to take the CA- 1 North exit to Stinson Beach but instead of going north we went south. Not knowing we made a mistake I continued. I didn’t say anything to Aicha because I was convinced that we were going the right way until I began to realize that the road did not seem like the road to Stinson Beach. Had we made an error? From my memory I knew that we didn’t have to be on the freeway for this long. When the trees began to fade and there were more signs for chain restaurants such as McDonalds or Jack in the Box is when I knew that we had made a wrong turn.

“Dude, we definitely went the wrong way. Jack in the Box does not look like it would be on the way to Stinson Beach” I said

“Oh great. We would get lost.” Aicha said sarcastically

I used to go to Stinson Beach a lot as a child, so I had a vague idea of where I was going. It seemed very different when I was the one driving. Before we got too far off in the wrong direction, we tried to find the next exit. Driving and driving, the exit seemed like it would never come. As soon as we thought that we were truly lost, we found an exit. We screamed with joy! Now the hard part came, we had to figure out how to get back to the CA-1 North. Driving around for about 20 minutes we could not find anything that resembled the CA-1 North.

“We should ask someone.” Aicha said

We looked around for someone to ask but there was absolutely nothing and no one in sight. Turing around we managed to make our way back to what we thought was the right way.

“Finally we are going the right way, I honestly just can’t wait to get to the beach and relax this has been way to stressful.”

“Haha I know! Wait, Lauren, that sign just said Oakland…”

“What? Are you serious? No, this cant be happening. Are we actually going back on this bridge? I can’t believe it. This is just great.” I said hopelessly

“Ugh, I don’t even know if I want to go anymore. There is like no point.” Aicha said

As I began to think about what just happened it didn’t seem to bother me as much as I thought it would. I was in an adventurous mood, so we decided to go all the way back to Berkeley, get back onto the freeway, wait in line for the toll booth, and pay the inconvenient four dollars. This time we made sure we went on the correct freeway north not south. As we began our journey up and down the nauseating yet gorgeous road I rolled down the window and a gush of fresh sea salt air whipped my face. It was absolutely breathtaking.

“The Ocean!” Aicha screamed with excitement.

It came and went so fast that I could barley get a good look. I awaited to get another glimpse of the beautiful ocean. The hills began to fall behind us as the road turned into a flat winding road running along side of the ocean. That’s when I got the first real look of the waves crashing onto the giant boulders that were scattered along the hills and the open ocean that went on for God knows how many miles. The sand looked warm from the sun beating down on it all morning long. Following the road down we made it into the small town. With so much to see the first thing that caught my eye was a little food shack that you could smell from fifteen feet away.

“We have to go there, I am so hungry you don’t even know.” I said pointing out the shack to Aicha.

“Yeah definitely. Hey look, there is a parking lot over there. Dude its free that’s so awesome.”

We parked the car but were too excited to get to the beach so we hopped straight into our bathing suits in the car. Now Aicha is not known for being fast at getting things done, as I waited for her to decide what bathing suit to wear, what shirt, what pants the hungry began to slip from my mind. Finally after about five minutes of waiting we got everything packed into our beach bag and headed over to the food shack. The shack was small, but smelled amazing. Aicha got a cheeseburger and I got a grilled cheeses with a vanilla milkshake. Satisfied we headed over to the beach. We walked up a small hill that led to the ocean. Right as we got to top we both stood there and took in the amazing view. Placing our towels down in a perfect spot a little blocked off from the wind we began to eat our lunch. Looking around at all of the kids playing soccer, the large waves crashing down hard onto the soft sand and the stunning mountains behind us, I had never felt so content in all my life. Stinson Beach definitely made it onto my list of favorite places.

“Can you hand me the tanning oil and my sunglasses, please.” I asked Aicha, as we began to make ourselves feel at home. After about twenty minutes of baking in the warm sun I had to go to the bathroom.

“Do you want to come with me to the bathroom?” I asked Aicha

“Sure, but do you think it’s okay if we leave our stuff here with no one to watch it?”

“Yeah, just bring your cell phone and camera I’m sure it will be fine.”

I turned around to check on our stuff as we walked off just to make sure it would be okay but to my surprise two seagulls were attacking our stuff. We ran back as we saw the seagulls trying to steal our bag of leftover lunch. Screaming and shooing them away our stuff was safe. We took the bag so we could throw away the food thinking the seagulls wouldn’t come back. But we were wrong again because this time they tried to steal our bags. Now what would seagulls want with a bag? Aicha sprinted over to try and shoo the seagulls away but they were not going to give up without a good fight. They swarmed around her like wild hyenas. Aicha found a stick and began to wave it around to get them to leave. After a good three minutes of watching her struggle and dying of laughter, I decided to help her defeat the seagulls.

“Oh man! That was a sight to see. I wish I got that on camera.” I said laughing

“Why didn’t you help me instead of just standing there and laughing, you meanie?”

“Because that was just too good.”

After about four hours of bathing in the sun we were ready to go. The ride back was even more magical than the morning’s adventure; the sun was slowly setting, and the ocean turned dark blue with a hit of reddish pink from the sun. Following the same zig zag road asearlier, the ocean grew farther and farther away and became part of our memory. The path opened up and we were back in civilization. Red lights turned to green as we slowly but surely found our way back to the freeway, or at least we thought.

“Okay, so I’m just going to warn you, I don’t really know how to get back. I have an idea...” I said trying to sound some what confident.

“Oh great. Here we go again. Well I’m sure it’s not too hard. We just have to go back the way we came.” Aicha said with some reassurance

A sign for San Francisco flashed by, not thinking too much of it I kept going. The road began to turn and started to seem more familiar. Yes this is it I’m sure it is this definitely looks like the opening to Oakland.

“We are going the right way. This seems like the right way right??” I asked trying to find some encouragement.

“Don’t ask me I have no idea where we are going, but if I’m right that defiantly does not look like the Richmond San Rafael Bridge…”

“That’s because that is the Golden Gate Bridge.”

I began to panic, there was no where to turn around we just had to keep going. Oh my God this cant be happening. There was nothing else we could do except go onto the bridge. Scrambling around to try to find money but we could not find anything. Freaking out my heart began to beat louder as we got closer and closer to the toll booth, I had no idea what to do. I could finally make out the sign that said six dollars for entering San Francisco.

“Aicha look harder! Its six dollars that is so much money! Why does it have to be so expensive? What is wrong with this world?!” I yelled as we approached the toll booth.

“I’m looking! I can’t find anything, ah yes I found a dollar maybe that will help.”

I turned to face the toll lady who was going to tell us what our fate was going to be. She had white curly hair, slightly overweight and a mole that pulled her image together perfectly.

“Hi, so we were trying to go back to Berkeley and some how we managed to go onto the Golden Gate Bridge and we can’t find our money. What do we do?”

“Just keep looking honey.” She said with a thick southern accent.

“What do we do if we can’t find our money?” I asked praying she will just let us go.

“You are going to have to pay a fee of thirty five dollars, you will receive a check in the mail in about two weeks.”

Thirty five dollars my parents are going to kill me! Another minute passed and cars began to honk, I got so frustrated that we just decided to go through and have to pay thirty five dollars.

“Watch us find the money now.” Aicha said looking around one last time.

I decided to reach behind Aicha’s seat and there it was six perfect dollars just laying there. This is so karma for not seeing John.