Mushrooms and Summer Days: Day Four: Creative Writing Club Banquet 2015

6/19/15, 11:43 PM PDT

After months of procrastinating, we finally had our Creative Writing Banquet. And even though we had over 350 dollars to burn, instead of doing something crazy like burn it all on Tracy's Kitchen Sink at Sloan's or watch something at Cinepolis, we decided on a humble little beach banquet.

Unfortunately, I was vying for a different venue.

In order to accoomodate the 15 or so club members we have, Samantha and I decided to leave early for the beach to secure a spot with a lot of room for us to sprawl out. So we left at 8 AM, which is still ridiculously early for any teenager to be waking up during summer. A quick Vons run to buy ice and sodas and stuff and then we were on our merry way.

I brought a tent with me because we knew it was gonna be ridiculously hot and we wanted some shade. It took about an hour to set up because I haven't used the tent in years and it came with no instructions and Sam and I are IDIOTS when it comes to assembling stuff. But eventually, we got it. One nice, innocent-looking, dinky little tent in the middle of an overcast, 9 AM sky.

It looks more pathetic in person, trust me.

Sam and I knew that it was gonna get pretty sunny today, and we were not interested in developing some kind of UV-induced skin cancer because of a club banquet, so we applied a LOT of sunscreen. A lot of it.

Or she's just trying to camouflage herself as a member
of the Jake Boring tribe, I'm not sure.

We pretty much slept in the tent until other people showed up. And since no one else showed up until a few hours later, we had a LOT of time to nap, which was wonderful.

Phoenix, Victoria, and Mama Gwen came at around noon (For today's post, Gwen will be called Mama Gwen because she came wearing a big old pair of sunglasses and read on her Nook all day while we did whatever).

"Oh don't worry, kiddies, you just run along on the beach,
mommy's just gonna be reading her Cosmopolitan articles!"

Angela, Kayla, Christina, Alex and Grant came at 4, and that's when the real party began. Not because those four were any more fun than Phoenix, Gwen, and Victoria. It's because the sun stopped being lethal at 4.

No longer would this be our fate.

We did a LOT of stuff at the beach, some of which you had to be there to full appreciate, so let me just go through some of the highlights.

Alex found a few pieces of charcoal on the ground, so he decided to give us all tribal face paint.

Angela, satisfied after a successful pillaging session.

I couldn't decide if I liked this picture....

Or this picture better.

Victoria's just sick of me taking pictures all the time.

Sam and I ended up looking like sad clowns because of how much sunscreen we had on our faces.

Sam also became a Pikmin today, I forgot to tell you
about that.

Alex also drew a vagina on my chest.

If you squint, it kinda looks like a pistachio.

This war paint was incredibly timely because an hour or so after, we found A LIVE CRAB ON THE BEACH.

Taste like crab...
(via Kayla)

Talk like people.
(via Kayla)

We praised the return of our lord and savior...

If you don't accept him into your life, then you're a bit shellfish hehehehehe.
(via Kayla)

Please accept our humble sacrifices, my lord.
(via Kayla)

We tried to summon a Mexican Demon again.

Imagine a handful of war-paint covered kids doing this in the middle
of the goddamn beach and you'll see how crazy we looked doing this.
(via Kayla)

But in the end, we figured out that it was probably dying. So, in order to spare our crabby overlord, we decided to release it gently back to the ocean, where it can leave a long and prosperous life, free from our meddling, mortal hands.

The exact moment that Alex "gently released it" into the wild.
(via Kayla)

Afterwards, Phoenix, Sam and I decided to embark upon a death march to the big old pier waaaaay in the distance. Why? Because Sam said that yesterday, she saw the mythical Sea Dick over there.

Imagine this, but underwater.
(via dickssportinggoods.com)

The entire way there, we decided to play Say The Same Thing as a group (even though you're supposed to do it as a pair activity). If you don't know what that game is, then here's OKGO with an explanation as to how it works.

We never really got it since there was three of us. We got close, and I absolutely BLEW IT when the words were "Berkeley" and "Valedictorian" and I DIDN'T SAY JIHUI.

Whatever, I'm human. I make mistakes. Have some pretty pictures I got of the walk to the rocks and back.

The pier we were talking about.

I love the silhouetted, infinite staircase look.

Rocks are normally pretty boring, but golden hour rocks... Whole
different story.

Phoenix decided to be adventurous and climb onto the rocks for a photoshoot. So we obliged.

Phoenix, making a really shitty number 4.

Phoenix, finally achieving Nirvana.

This isn't Phoenix, we just found of the extras for Planet of the Apes.

"Oh you!"

Unfortunately, during the shoot, Phoenix had a horrible, HORRIBLE accident that left her absolutely mangled and broken.

This content may be disturbing to our younger viewers.

She got better though.

"Yeah, just let me realign my spine..."

"All good."

I got a REALLY good silhouette shot of the two of them on the walk back.

I wish that bridge wasn't jutting out of Phoenix's neck though.

And we also found this very welcoming place on the beach.

Oh! I'm late! I'm late!

We decided to step closer.

The Sasquach shadows weren't there when I took this photo...

And we looked inside.

Dark. Deep. Inhospitable. ~~Like your mom.~~

And Phoenix, the crazy daredevil she is, decided to enter.

Jesus Christ.

This was the last we saw of her.

She went so deep that we couldn't see her anymore. After a few minutes, we thought we heard the sound of bones crunching, but I mean Phoenix came back out looking a little dead in the eyes but otherwise perfectly fine, so we just shrugged it off.

That's not a Phoenix...

Oh and we eventually did find the Sea Dick.

"It's not yellow and soft anymore!" - Sam, 2015

When we got back, we had a big old water gun fight, courtesy of Phoenix's personal armory. Kayla got some fantastic shots of us, until I accidentally got her camera wet because of my shit aim.