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.