This evening, my girlfriend and I are getting on a plane to San Francisco for the weekend. Tonight we will be staying right on the coast down by Pescadero, and tomorrow I will be on bended knee asking from her hand in marriage. Here’s how it will play out:
I have a retro-style glass bottle into which I am going to put a rolled-up piece of paper. Upon said sheet of paper is a sappy bit of poetry (about on par with Vogon poetry) professing my undying love and asking her to marry me. I plan to sneak out of the room early tomorrow morning and place my message in a bottle on the beach. A few hours later, we will go for a walk on the beach together where she will discover the bottle and read the note. I, in the meantime, will be down on one knee with the ring in the palm of my hand awaiting her answer with bated breath…
I hope no one takes the bottle away before your girlfriend can get back to it… have a back-up plan just in case, but I hope it goes off the way you planned because it’s really romantic! She sounds like a lucky girl to have you!
Be sure to sign the note. Otherwise, she may turn around and say, “SEE? You won’t propose to me, but some STRANGER on an UNKNOWN ISLAND can find the guts to do it!”
(Carry the bottle with you in your manpurse and then toss it near her when she isn’t looking. I wouldn’t trust the tides and people and stuff. With your luck, you will end up proposing to a dirty, smelly hippie!)
Those are some of my favorite beaches there. Check and understand to the tide levels, the crowd flows - you don’t want some kid or dog finding and moving it, and the trash pickup patterns of the rangers or whoever (those are state beaches, bring a few bucks to park - you are going to get engaged, at some you can park on the road and dodge traffic, but if she says yes or no you won’t be in a mood to do that when you return). Also consider carrying a spare in case the original does not turn up!!!
Under no circumstances should you surprise her too close to the tops of the cliffs!! It is a long way down and yes, people do fall there!
Congratulations and good luck! Hopefully you can find a way to minimize the time between bottle placement and discovery – maybe twenty bucks to a bellhop could bring the time down to just a couple of minutes?
One other bit of advice that I always offer to the newly engaged: Just because she will now be your fiancé, It is not, repeat, not, appropriate to start referring to her as your “ex-girlfriend”.
Heh, that is a very rural area, there are not going to be any bellhops. I am surprised there is even a hotel, it might be a B and B.
I forgot, to celebrate, there is a lighthouse nearby with a spectacular view, and up at San Gregorio is a general store that has some food, fun people and bands, at least on the weekends, 1 mile inland at Stage Road (which takes the inland route back to Pescadero).
