Restart

As if the ocean was welcoming us back the swell picked up and offered clean and big conditions on Tuesday morning. We dropped Dani of at work and took her car to drive to Huntington where I had a wonderful surf session in really nice waves. I finally felt completely comfortable on my new board and I didn't have to worry about where to stand and what to do once I was up and riding. I had another surf in the evening, the sun was setting, the wind had completely died down.It was an amazing experience. While I was paddling out the sun shone through the waves which made them look like green fire and one guy rode a barrel right in front of me standing upright, just a black silhouette shooting along that green wall with the setting sun in his back. It was also the first time for me to be the very last one in the water, I stayed until I couldn't even see the waves coming, and it was such a great feeling having the whole wide ocean only for yourself. The next day we surfed the rest of the swell with Dani and a friend called Mike. He was a cool guy and I enjoyed having him with me. He was great surf company. The rest of the day we stayed at home, chilled and started to plan the next trip up north and that is also pretty much what we did for the rest of the week.

We also went hiking with Kenny one day. He picked us up after work to take us to Mt. Baldy, a mountain close by to show us how close together everything is in California. After a 40 minute drive we reached the foot of the mountain from where we started our walk. The air was so much nicer up there and all the little cabins and the trees made you think you were far far away from any big city. We had left a little late so we had to hurry to get up the hill in time to have some light left and we only made it halfway before we decided to stay and enjoy the sunset from a clearing on the side of the hill. it was beautiful and even though we couldn't see very far it was great to be there. It got cold quickly though so we hurried back down the track in the fading light and drove back into the big, loud, smelly city.

Mt. Boldy

Kenny picked us up on Friday night because we wanted to have pancakes with him and his mom on Saturday morning before he took us to a Pinball auction. The Pinball auction itself was quite interesting (I definitely need a Pinball machine when I come back home) but Bekki and I felt a bit lost between all those experts and it took a long time until they actually started auctioning the pinball machines and Bekki and I got a little bored. Mike, who had come to Santa Barbara with us scored two machines for a good price though which was good for him. After the auction we visited Brianne, Kenny's ladyfriend. They were restoring an old Pinball machine there, which was taken apart and ready to be sprayed. Bekki helped them put the stencil on the sides while I played on another machine... We went back to Kenny's place at around 7pm where we met Dani and a few other friends who we hung out with. Dani had to leave early because she had work the next day which meant that Bekki had to say the real goodbye to her because she would leave the country from SF. I had already decided that I would stay until my I had my passport so I knew that I would be coming back.