Thanksgiving Day 2013

Not always do the swell, the weather, the wind and my days off line up around here, but one such day was last Thursday, Thanksgiving no less!  The surf was pumping and offering up triple overhead peaks, which had the Coast Guard out practicing big wave survival handling.  It was a humbling paddle out, between my mind racing about what was waiting for once I made it outside and the giant white water walls trying to send me back to the beach.

At about 11:15 am, as the swell was peaking and the tide still dropping, I nabbed the wave of my life.  The giant left hander somehow came to me and there was nothing else I could do, but GO.  I hardly hard to adjust my line as I dropped in and raced down the line to the inside shoulder.   It was a speed blur of adrenaline and focus.  I knew after I made the final section that it was the wave of my life.  Photo credits to Dan Dedina who captured the sequence.  Big shout out to John Carper, renowned shaper for his trusty 7'2"

that he sold me.

The Gate

Different moods at twilight at one of the wonders of the world.

Timeless

It's going to be a long summer, when the grass is that torched in May.

Fall Surf

It’s hard to beat fall in California for wave sliding.  Autumn is when California shakes off its gray, marine layer hangover and the Golden State really delivers – in terms of weather, sunsets and wave quality.  There are usually a few magical weeks, where summer south swell, NPAC west swell, the odd hurricane pulse and classic Indian Summer High Pressure line up to create world class surf throughout the state. Don’t bother hassling at the popular reefs and points: This is the time of the beach break!  Even very average beach break, which can lie seemingly un-ridable for months will offer up clean, punchy, combo-swell induced peaks all over.  Come October/November I always have my eye on the charts/forecasts to see when (not if) it will all come together.

Rains of November

After the long, bleaching Californian Summer and Fall, nothing is more of a relief than the first rain. The knowledge that the hills will return to life, and that built-up tension of half a year without rain will be washed away and the land renewed. The chill and dampness in the air remind you the sun is closing in on its lowest noon height and that the seasons have indeed changed. These are the days to stay in bed, listen to the rain patter on your window and feel good about staying inside.  Remember to thank the Jetstream for breaking the summer’s long siege and ushering in life-giving moisture of the North Pacific.

Steinbeck's California

"I remember the that Gabilan Mountains to the east of the valley were light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation, so that you wanted to climb into their warm foothills almost as you want to climb into the lap of a beloved mother.  They were beckoning mountains with a brown grass love.  The Santa Lucias stood up against the sky to the west and kept the the valley from the open sea, and they were dark and brooding-unfriendly and dangerous.  I always found in myself a dread of the west and a love of the east.  Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say, unless it could be that the morning came over the peaks of the Gabilans and the night drifted back from the ridges of the Santa Lucias."

―John Steinbeck, East of Eden

"When Samuel and Liza came to the Salinas Valley all the level land was taken, the rich bottoms, the little fertile creases in the hills, the forests, but there was still marginal land to be homesteaded, and in the barren hills to the east of what is now King City, Samuel Hamilton homesteaded...From their barren hills the Hamiltons could look down to the west and see the richness of the bottom land and the greenness around the Salinas River."

―John Steinbeck, East of Eden

"When June came the grasses headed out and turned brown, and the hills turned a brown which was not brown but a gold and saffron and red - an indescribable color."

―John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons, the way a man might now gain tittle to building lots.” 

―John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“On the wide level acres of the valley the topsoil lay deep and fertile. It required only a rich winter of rain to make it break forth in grass and flowers. The spring flowers in a wet year were unbelievable. The whole valley floor, and the foothills too, would be carpeted with lupins and poppies.

―John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Why don't you go on west to California? There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you go there?” 

―John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath

Kerouac's California

Not bad for a French-Canadian from New England:

“I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word.”
― Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

“All the magic names of the valley unrolled - Manteca, Madera, all the rest. Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries. I stuck my head out the window and took deep breaths of the fragrant air. It was the most beautiful of all moments.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“I never saw such crazy musicians. Everybody in Frisco blew. It was the end of the continent; they didn't give a damn.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"Dean's California--wild, sweaty, important, the land of lonely and exiled and eccentric lovers come to forgather like birds, and the land where everybody somehow looked like broken-down, handsome, decadent movie actors.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"I suddenly realized I was in California. Warm, palmy air - air you can kiss - and palms. ... I wandered out like a haggard ghost, and there she was, Frisco - long, bleak streets with trolley wires all shrouded in fog and whiteness."
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"When we staggered out of the car on O'Farrell Street and sniffed and stretched, it was like getting on shore after a long voyage at sea..."
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

" I thought, and looked everywhere, as I had looked everywhere in the little world below. And before me was the great raw bulge and bulk of my American continent; somewhere far across, gloomy, crazy New York was throwing up its cloud of dust and brown steam. There is something brown and holy about the East; and California is white like washlines and emptyheaded - at least that’s what I thought then."
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

""LA." I loved the way she said "LA"; I love the way everybody says "LA" on the Coast; it’s their one and only golden town when all is said and done.
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"This man had voyaged to the West Coast too, like all the other loose American elements."
― Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler

"Well, we bums call it the Midnight Ghost cause you get on it at L.A. and nobody sees you till you get to San Francisco in the morning the thing flies so fast."
"Eighty miles an hour on the straightaways, pap."
"That's right but it gits mighty cold at night when you're flyin up that coast north of Gavioty and up around Surf."
― Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums