My Snickers ice cream bar was two thirds finished when Garrick and Sam came out of 21 Lapidge. What were they up to? A coastal field trip of exploration and semi-pro geology by pot smoking boy scouts.

We were all very excited and Sam was doing his impressions of inbred Sonoma dudes. We started out with a hidden beach community just inside of Point Pedro in Pacifica. A private protected cove with houses on stilts on the beach and perfect longboard waves brought our curses down upon those lucky bastards. Then our first bout with Garrick's gourmet pot and down to Moss Bay marine reserve and the petrified whalebone, concretions, and the first real contribution to my face burn.

The boys were easy to persuade to get fish tacos at the Half Moon Bay Flying Fish Stand at highway 92. I'd rank the 3 varieties thusly: cod, salmon, mahi. The boys are fish taco types. That place has been a 10 year love affair with me, but I'm sad to report that the little paint-by-numbers paintings, including the one of the fishercat in the little boat with a yellow sailor hat, are gone. The owners have installed some more "classy" furnishings, like photos of killer whales jumping.

We drove down to Bean Hollow, which Garrick raved about. I didn't pay much attention until we got there. Holy Moses! Just over the point to the south of the beach is the most amazing erosion I've ever seen. What happened, according to Garrick, is there was all this sand and silt and some water carrying cement filtered through it. The patterns that the groundwater took hardened and became an amazing honeycombed structure when the sandy parts eroded away. It looked like rock doilies at one point. When I first saw it I said, "Aw, look, someone has spoiled it by carving designs in the rock" and Garrick said, "Sorry bud, that's natural."

We watched the sets roll in with crippled Sam back on the beach and then it was Sam's turn to direct us home. Brilliant choices indeed: up 84 to La Honda and the giant redwoods and then onto 35 and the ridge that lets you see all of Silicon Valley and the Pacific Ocean at once. The air smelled impossibly sweet and we were lucky as hell.