Saturday, September 20th was one of the last days of summer. People rush around to go do something, anything in the sun while it's around. That was our plan... Robert and I are going to
Lake Perris SRA Sunday to hang out and ride his waverunner. I an terrified of any sort of big water, but I'm going to face my fear and go for it. He said he would keep me safe.
In the mean time, we had dinner Saturday night at
Sakura. You would never think that this place located in a strip mall next to Ralph's would not be any good, but if you thought that, you'd be wrong. This is actually the second time we went there and I got to tell ya, it just keeps getting better and better.
I ordered a sashimi plate and Robert got the baked mussels. We both got these fried chili spiked green peppers. I did fine on the baby one with no chili, but when I got to the second one and bit into the chili, I thought my mouth was on fire. We also both had orders green bean w/ peanut. It's O.K., but I think they are just trying too hard with that one. We also shared a special crunchy roll. Yummy. As for dessert, the chopped orange with plum wine. That thing is crazy good. To wash it all down, we drank ice water and I think 3 bottles of dry cold saki which were shared with the proprietors.
After dinner, we went over to Ralph's in our saki induced haze and bought snacks for the trip on Sunday. A bowl of chopped mixed fruit, a can of nuts, Triskets, Milanos cookies, a package of shrimp, and cocktail sauce. Robert had already taken care of the drinks and the ice.
So before going to Roberts on Saturday night, I thought I had packed what I need to bring to go to the lake. I had shorts, a top and a light jacket for the morning because it's usually kinda cold in the desert and some rubbery flip flops. I was informed I needed a bathing suit because I was going to get wet. Oh hell. I wasn't planning on getting wet because all I wanted to do was learn how to cruise in the waverunner and not get dumped into the lake. So the stupid alarm goes off at 4:30AM by accident and we sleep in until 5:30AM and then I get dressed to run over to my condo with
his blessing to give the dog a car ride in order to grab a tshirt, my polo shirt dress and my bathing suit. In my mind, I'm thinking a wet or not, a tshirt over my red string bikini would be ok for waverunner riding and prevent needless sunburning atleast on my shoulders and some of my arms.
I changed into the bikini and wore the polo dress over it during the commute. We backed everything up, got gas and hit the road at about 7:30AM. I was tagged shotgun navigator. That 60 E to the 215 S interchange is still under construction and confusing as hell because the signage is not quite right. Robert said he missed it before and I can see why. What a pisser that exchange is!
While passing through Riverside, Robert said we had to go eat breakfast at McDonalds. He said it was tradition. I was game. We exited at McKinley and found our way over to the restaurant on the north side of the freeway. I ordered an egg mcmuffin w/ no cheese, a hash brown and a hi-c orange drink from the fountain. Robert got the two sausage mcmuffin with egg deal and coffee. We sat where we could keep an eye on the waverunner and the reserve gas bottles.
We made out way out to Perris Lake by 8:30AM and had everything set-up and the waverunner launched in about 20 minutes.
The shirt turned out to be a good idea because it provided me some level of cottony comfort under the life preserver. It also acted as a cover-up for my bikini while I sat under the Ez-Up and hung out in the shade snacking, reading the newspaper, listening to the Angels baseball game on the radio, sunning my pasty white calves and taking pictures of Robert, among other things, as he came in and out of the water.
I went out onto the lake with Robert a total of three times. The first time, I screamed "No!" about one hundred times until he reduced his speed to about 25 mph. I couldn't get over the fact that the speed feels so much faster on the water. It's got to have something to do with the wave motion and all the reflections. Amazing.
The second time, he went putt-putt slow for me around the island in the middle of the lake. That was nice. I can handle cruising under 20 mph. We saw how folks were set-up on the island, how some were fishing, and some local flora and and fauna which is stuff like I like to do anyway. I'm an observer, so that was cool.
The third time, which he said didn't count?!? wth... we went straight to the dam area which is not visible from the Lot 5 location where we set-up camp for the day. That was kinda weird and kinda cool because I never seen anything like that before. He went faster than putt-putt this time, so I was having a difficult time with the jarring and my breathing was still in panic mode, but I wasn't yelling "No!" so much this time. Then he told he ate it twice over by the dam later in the day, broke a toe, jammed up another and ended up with some weirdly placed bruises on his body from getting dumped off of the waverunner. Gesus. He told me Evil Kenevil was his hero before we got out to the lake. So now I know I'm dealing with a man with no fear. Good in some situations, but not with high rate of speed in uncontrolled environments. Maybe he'd like one of those race car driver packages they offer at the speedway in Fontana for Christmas... hrmmm. I'll have to poke around and see if he's ever done that before. But I digress...
So we were out there maybe a total of about 6 hours. It was nice to be out in nature with him because it's something I would not do alone. I told him it was a big deal for me to do something like going on the waverunner and step out of my box... out of my comfort zone. He said he proud of me and now wants to take me up to Lake Mead with my own Yahama Waverunner Cruiser. That was a lot to take in all at once considering I'm not confident even riding alone on his vehicle yet. Sounds cool because I like the desert, but yikes! My own waverunner?? I'll have to go to Lake Perris a few more times before going to Lake Mead.
He told me no one took pictures when he went before so I think he liked the fact that I took pictures when we went. I think they are important especially for only children. I've taken tons of pictures of my son so much so that he now considers me paparazzi and hold up his hand or turns his head all the time. So now I have another subject to photograph - good. I received an email from newegg.com today with a price shocker on an Olympus splash resistant digital camera, which lead me to look deeper for a water resistant one that I could take onto the waverunner without totally freaking out if it got wet. That would be cool to take pictures from that vantage point. He could do his version of speed racer on the water and I could go putt-putt and be happy.
