So I went to the beach yesterday and came home with one shoe....

A few weeks ago I had family in town and posted this picture on Instagram:

“Secret swimming spot”.

I didn’t know what beach it was and it was down below some pretty major-looking cliffs but I filed it in the “remember this later” file of my brain for a day when we were looking to soak up some sun. Yesterday my husband and I decided we wanted to go to the beach for the first time all summer (!), especially because we only have one week left before our school semester starts. I remembered this beach and we decided to check it out.

When we got there it was gorgeous and the water looked awesome but there was one big problem: how the hell did we get down there? We spotted an area to try to climb down and he was apprehensive but I made fun of him and told him he was a baby and went down first.

Bad idea.

I made it about halfway before I slipped, tried to catch myself from plummeting to my death and not break my camera at the same time, and in the process ended up losing both of my flip flops. I ungracefully climbed back to the top while he was laughing and telling me he would buy me new shoes if I just wanted to go to the beach down the road but I was determined. We ended walking (me barefoot) and asking some surfers along the road and they showed us the way down, which wasn’t much better.

You have to climb down a steep dirt path with huge slabs of concrete in the way, walk along a jutted cliff area, then across some wet boulders where apparently something died because we walked through a storm of flies, and then onto the beach (all without shoes, for me). We finally reached it and I jumped right in because I was covered in sweat and dirt.

It was beautiful and it’s now my favorite spot in San Diego. The water was amazing and the view was fantastic. I lounged, read some of my book, and watched as my husband tried to retrieve my flip flops from the side of the cliffs. It was a lot of work to get there but it was nice to discover another part of San Diego that we didn’t know about.

Even if I did come home with only one shoe.