June 5th- We got an early start from A-train (after having rocker beers with a crew o' local and pseudo locals the night before), stopped off for a baked goods pick up from margie's house, and then did a bee line to OSwald west aka Short Sands for the first surf session of the trip. The beach looks like this:
I guess the most noteworthy thing that occurred, aside from catching a few waves, was our conversation with drunken surfer dood from PDX, whose alarmingly alcoholic response to the question "how long does it take you to get here from Portland?" was "Long enough dood, long enough."Anyway, we did a little driving, saw the gorgeous mazanita view below, stopped at the tillamook cheese factory for samples, bought some peanuts, and did a little more driving.
We ended up in Cape Kiwanda just in time for a little evening surf session which was comprised, at least on my part, of a LOT of flailing, but sweet sweet redemption came in the form of a tasty wave that I rode all the way into the beach, at which point I ran straight to my camera in a last minute attempt to capture the mind-boggling sunset. Fairly unsuccessfully....
The post-surfing activities at Cape Kiwanda are nearly as fantastic as the surfing itself. The Pelican brewery owns the parking lot from which the surf beach is accessed. Not only will they serve you up some mighty delicious brew and refill spilled pints, but they'll let you sleep for free in their parking lot right on the damn beach. Holy moses. Day 1 was pretty epic.June 6th-
Not to praise the place too much, but Kiwanda really is pretty illlll. The community has a real friendly/ welcoming vibe to it. Nice folks in and around the little coffee shop, where again, we were offered free refills. Then it was time to hit the road...
Eh...so much for the peanuts...
After lots o driving, we rolled into Jule's old stomping grounds- Coos Bay, OR. We had a pretty fun long-boarding session at Bastendorff (toughest beach i ever met), which featured an incredibly long paddle out. I'm talking like 1/2 mile or something. Ugh. Pretty place though!
After surfing, we stopped in for some astoundingly good calzones and a few brews at Roger's Pub in North Bend, which I could not recommend more highly. THE place to go for beers in Coos Bay.
Knowing full-well another sunset surf session was out of the question, we enjoyed the sights along the road...
Our nightly drive landed us in Port Orfort Oregon, which is getting pretty dern far south in Oregon. We got our first sniff of a humbolt hippie-esque community here, with lots of organic foods in even the tiniest of local stores. We slept in some day parking lot at Port Orford Heads State Park.June 7-
We got free wake-up service in the form of a ranger, who wanted us to get the shicagnee out of there. compliance....
Checked the surf at the beach in front of town. (Notice the bouldering potential). While we encountered plenty of small swell throughout our trip, we had to draw the line somewhere, say "too effing small," and move on.
The drive south into northern California was a stretch of road neither Tone, nor myself had ever driven before. There are numerous surf spots and lots of great views to be had along the way. We found ourselves in Crescent City in the afternoon and spotted some clean, albeit small waves at Cescent City South Beach..
We continued on our merry way towards the mythical Moonstone Beach, which is just north of Arcata, in Northern California. We had heard rumor of beach bouldering right alongside good surfing. Could such a mecca actually exist? Well...the sunset could make a guy believe...
We didn't really get too much of a chance to check the bouldering out before it got dark, but that was okay because we had a hot date with another microbrewery for some prime parking lot sleeping. This time it was the six rivers brewery, which is actually in McMinville, just north of Arcata. There was good brew, a terrible live band, and some ridiculously compelling/animated faces to watch.June 8th-
I should take a moment to mention that by this time we were in the heart of shark infested waters. Our faithful Stormrider Guide to North America advised us that several shark attacks had occurred at Camel Rock and that sharks in Northern California/Southern Oregon were anything but uncommon. They were pretty vague with their description of what a "shark" was...calling the local sharks "white sharks." I don't know if that's great white or what... Anyway, we got a PRIME morning session in at camel rock, which is part of the greater moonstone beach area. The swell was more geared for long-boarders, but tone and I had many many good rights on a fairly predictable peak with our funboards. There were a bunch of folks on the north side of the beach (the smallll side in the picture), which left tone and I all alone in the water over at our MASSIVE peak. The lack of crowds was certainly not something we had expected for California surfing. Anyway, this was probably the best surf sesh o' the trip!
I was goddamn exhausted from so much surfing on atrophied surfing muscles, but the sun came out and recharged our batteries enough to do up a little beach bouldering!
In my opinion, the beach bouldering was somewhat mediocre when compared to legitimate bouldering destinations. It was, however, right on the beach, next to some might fine surfing... which definitely helps build a strong case for mecca-like status for the area....especially when you factor in the 3 local microbreweries and the high-quality local foods readily available at even the smallest of stores. Someone should move to Arcata!
The constant pressure we were getting from Sam to get the hell down to San Diego was too much for us at this point, so we decided to press southward once again. Eh code?
We made it as far as Ukiah and checked into the Ukiah Brewery for some beers and bedded down for the evening.June 9th-
We drove. All day. and made it to San Diego with just enough time to partake in a sunset surf session. Sam lives on Newport Ave in Ocean Beach (below), which is just one of the many beach communities near San Diego. Now I've done a bit of travelling and am always a bit baffled as to why I've never encountered a US destination that has the same feel as a tourist-infested foreign location. Well, Newport Ave in OB allayed my fears that such a place does not exist in the US! Naw, it isn't really too overbearing...in fact, it's a pretty damn nice place to chill once you get used to it.
Plus, a few short blocks away, there's some gnar gnar surfing to be had in the form of Ocean Beach Pier- the longest pier on the west coast of the states.
Sam and his girlfriend Brit put us up in proper fashion which is really mighty kind, considering how much smelly surf gear we had with us...not to mention cody. The microbrewery tour continued this evening with the Karl Strauss Brewing Company, where both Sam and Brit are employed. We got a good amount of beer tasting in...that's for sure.
June 10th-
We decided to check out the mythical Blacks Beach for the afternoon's surf session. The jerks in San Diego are apparently okay with overweight naked men on their beaches, but NOT dogs. Sure, there were 20 or so signs stating as much that we passed on our walk down to the beach with cody in tow, but we all failed to register them as we were quite distracted by the sights (the waves, not the naked people)! We were all waist deep in water without a care in the world when the life guard truck rolled up and wanted to know whose dog was running amuck on the beach. Well, lucky for tone, it was only a 3/4 mile walk on the beach and then a 20 minute hike up the bluff to get back to the truck.
The surfing was pretty good at blacks...unfortunately quite a lot better for hour that tone was absent dropping off cody. The scene here was a stark contrast to all the other surf spots that we had hit throughout Oregon and Northern California. I saw nearly every helicopter type I know fly by during our time in the water and there were plenty of other airborne visual distractions; from para-gliders to flying banners. Then i saw a dorsal fin and proceeded to panic thinking it was a shark.. turns out it was just a friendly pack of dolphins.
The crowds were not as much of an issue as we had anticipated. I imagine the swell size was a big factor in that perception, however. The small waves led to shifty peaks and, well, they just didn't draw in the hard core rippers like large waves do.
By the time we got back to the truck it was 4:00pm and none of us had really eaten anything.. We made haste back to Sam's place and found our way to South Beach Bar & Grille, which I guess was voted best fish taco in North America by the highly prestigious and credible Maxim Magazine. Don't get me wrong though, they were goddamn delicious- a little mahi mahi and civiche really hit the spot.
Relaxation and recuperation ensued for a little while and then it was time to get back in the water... OB pier style.
We went to some friends of Sam's for a sushi/ some board game which i was too inebriated to play properly party and thus our day terminated...June 11th-
Got a morning session in over at another beach just north of Ocean Beach Pier after checkin out a few spots along the Sunset Cliffs, where we saw this dood pushing the limit...
This was the last surfing session of the trip for me and, post surfing, it had the effect of launching my thoughts towards the 7 AM flight I had to catch out of LAX the following morning. Sam had to go to work, so tone and I took the opportunity to grace the good folks at the Mens Warehouse with our salty/neoprene smelling bodies and get fitted for springer wedding tuxes. The store was conveniently located near Justin and Jenna's (friends of tone's) place in Oceanside, which is just a short 1:15 away from LAX.We hooked up with some really cutting edge sushi over at a local sushi hot spot and my good lord it was a tasty coupla units. That, followed by a nice bike-gang (there were 4 of us) tour of beaches on some super sweet cruiser bikes (pretty close to the one homeboy's riding here), made for a fine final evening.
June 12th-
Off to LAX for some cushy tile-floor sleeping between the hours of 1:00 Am and 6:00 Am, followed by some carpeted floor sleeping, followed by some plane sleeping, followed by some more plane sleeping, followed by some work and then some more work until 2:30 Am the following morning.
