Cruz'in in Santa Cruz

After a great week of climbing in Tahoe, Kevin and I drove down to Santa Cruz to surf. Kevin took 2 weeks off to hang with me which says a lot about him 1) he is a very patient guy to put up with me for that long 2) we share almost everything in common and 3) he has an awesome wife Denise who let him play while she took care of their two boys. For 5 days straight in Santa Cruz: surf, Molkky (outdoor lawn game), chess by the campfire, repeat. Yes . .. .  I did say we played chess by the campfire. Turns out when I mentioned that we share a log in common, this includes us both being big dorks.

What made this portion of the journey near perfect was Margie made a spur of the moment decision to fly down and meet us for the weekend too. After 3 weeks not seeing each other, this made all the difference for both of us. (I think she just wanted to see her van curtains and uphoulstry in use though :). The three of us had a great time surfing, cooking by the campfire and hanging out. The weekend with Margie went waaaay to quickly but it was sure nice to see each other, plus I had to send her back to work so my sabbatical fun could still be funded!

While in Santa Cruz I did make a pitstop to the VW wizard Dave Ebert. I found out about him last year when I broke down in Santa Cruz. This guy is probably the most knowledgble guy for vintage VW vans. He tuned up the van and got it running better than it has ever before for a fraction of the price of local VW shops back home (FORESHADOWING: If only I would have asked him to replace my fuel pump when I was there).

Kevin and I continued down the coast and made a surf stop for a day in Pismo beach Califonia and made it back to LA for 2 nights with Denise and the boys. We squeezed one last day of surfing in and it flat out hurt. We were tired after 7 days straight and the surf beat us up to no end that day. The surfboards got cleaned off and we headed to Las Vegas to meet up with Grant and Scott in hopes of making my money back that I lost in Tahoe. Just in case you are dieing to know how this ended up.....It surprisingly didn't happen.

Climb On!

I was lucky enough to have 4 friends meet me in Lake Tahoe for climbing at a wall called Lover's Leap for a solid 5 days of great climbing. From left to right in the picture is: Craig from Phoenix, Kevin from LA, Peter from Portland and Pat from Olympia. We are all friends of some way or another from all working at Intel at some point of our lives.

The weather was great and in total I think we climbed a total of 18 pitches in 5 days which is a heck of a lot of climbing. One of the coolest climbs we did was called Bear's Reach which is about 400+ feet. You can watch a famous climber by the name of Dan Osman climb the same route here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ADOK6LD70w

He did the climb without ropes or gear in a little over 4 minutes. Took us a little under 4 hours I think. Believe it or not the guy died in a climbing accident. Crazy huh?

The one thing that I did notice is that now that I am getting older fear is catching up to me! Kevin and I were sitting about 200 feet up from the ground on the side of the rock at a belay station as Craig climbed on, and we both realized that we were scared out of our pants and started giggling uncontrollably. At that point we both agreed it was time to get to Santa Cruz and start surfing as soon as possible!

Before Kevin and I left Tahoe we spent a night at the casinos to try and win some money to fund the rest of the trip. Well that didn't happen. . . . However we spent about 4 hours at the blackjack table with some new friends, Lalani, Milly, and their husbands who were all 80+. Lalani and her husband Tony (a WWII vet) were married for 63 years. Kevin and I had a blast with them all night and it was so nice and inspiring to meet couples that have been together for so long and still out having the times of their lives.

Here are some additional pictures of us climbing:

Three Lakes

Ouch! My arms were too tired to paddle my surfboard anymore plus it was time to start heading  from Newport, Oregon to Lake Tahoe to meet up with more friends. Turns out when you are driving a 1974 VW van full of gear, the trip takes a bit longer than google tells you it is going to take.  Along the way to Lake Tahoe I  made stops at two additional lakes.

Lake #1 - The first was at Crater Lake National Park in Southern Oregon, which is said to be one of the deepest lakes in the continent. The original plan was to bike around the lake but due to rain and occasional snow showers I decided that would have to be another trip. I was able to catch a couple of sun breaks here and there to take in the views of the lake though and a nice hike from the rim down to the lake itself.

Lake #2 - The next lake was Tule Lake, California, just south of the Oregon border, however I never saw the lake. This is the camp location where my grandparents and over 15,000 other Japanese Americans were taken from their homes along the west coast and relocated to during WWII. Shortly after my grandparents were relocated, my Mom was also born here. Today, there is a very small museum with some artifacts, reconstructed buildings and information about the camp at the county fairgrounds. There is also small piece of land with a national monument plaque stating the location, however there is near nothing left standing. This was a humbling experience for me knowing the sacrifies my family made to get from this location 70 years ago to me today passing through selfishly snapping pictures in the middle of a 2.5 month vacation.

 

Lake #3 - After two long days in the van, I finally arrived in Lake Tahoe to eventually meet up with 5 friends for some incredible rock climbing.

Surfs up!

The next 10 days, I managed to surf 9 of the 10 days, with one rest day due to pretty cruddy weather. For 4 of those days, my friend from high school Andy Backlund joined me in central Oregon. The two surf spots that I enjoyed the most were Oswald West beach in Northern Oregon and Otter Rock Beach just north of Newport Oregon. Andy has just picked up surfing in the past year with me and is quickly becoming addicted with me. Possibly the best part of surfing now is that wherever I go, I get hippy surfers in their subaru outbacks drooling over my van. I kid you not, EVERYWHERE I go, I have at least 2 conversations with strangers about the van. Soooooo proud :). I keep telling them having a '74 van is awesome. . . . when it is running. More on that later.

Driving the Oregon coast daily was simply stunning. Aside from surfing Andy and I managed to visit some of the local sites from the Rogue Brewery (or as Andy pronounces it "Brewerery") headquarters, to cool little seaside towns with some of the best breakfasts. At the camp site we managed to pass time in the evenings playing Molkky (Game much like Bocci, just 10 times more fun), the generals board game (a game Andy I played in high school. . . yes he brought it with him), and watching the big Lebowski. . . about 5 times.  

Sabbatical Starts . . . . Now.

After last minute curtain hanging and packing thursday night, I drove into my last day of work friday with my van loaded up for over a month of fun. There was major gratification driving away from the Intel parking lot for some reason. . . .

Margie and I drove down the coast for a weekend in Cannon Beach where we celebrated our 4th anniversary together. We had a wonderful weekend of surfing at Indian beach, biking along 101, relaxing morning coffee and nice facny dinners. We lucked out on the weather as it was beautiful and a perfect start to sabbatical. Margie had to leave the next monday to go back to work, but don't feel too bad for her, part 2 of my sabbatical she will join me for Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand! Oh yeah, almost forgot about the best part. . . .I got Margie to drive the van for the first time