Yup, you guessed you it, thats totally the jist of it, Im completely and utterly wiped out and its not from a good surf session. Fortunately it is from something thats almost as rewarding as hitting some good waves and enjoying the never ending decadence that is the ocean, its from, you guessed it, a roadtrip, one of the few jam packed opportunities that hold innumerable new experiences and bountiful tales squeezed into a short time frame. So thats what here to discuss, all the crazy stuff that happened along the road and none of the boring stuff, cause hey lets face it, even taking a leak becomes something to talk about when your on the road.

I suppose I could start out with a little back story as to why I took a roadtrip, so here it is:                      Had to leave the gnarliest state in the U S of A for school and I miss the ocean severly.

Alright, happy thats taken of now lets jump right in and try not to drown.

The whole thing was supposed to take place over the course of about 8 days, which retrospectively would have been a great idea, but theres two things most people know about me, A) I cant help but procrastinate (at this very moment Im trying to procrastinate this blog) and B) Im always late, never on time, (Sorry ladies I do my best when Im picking you up, but whatever time I give you really means add half an hour and a witty joke about why Im late to make up for it, I figure if you laugh Im off the hook, current ratio is about 7:10, 7 out of 10 times I get away with it, but I digress....) Anyhow, so when I told my friend to come out to California to hang out for a week and then roadtrip back, neither him or I realized that subconsciously I would do anything and everything to put off leaving the sweetest state ever and that I had so much shit to do before I left, which made it pretty easy. Thus, leaving on the 24th end up as the 27th or as my other friend put it who was in California until August 29th, "Dude, its going to be the next day and next until you end up leaving when I do."

Now before I continue, lets just say the planning for the trip consisted of me choosing about 4 cities I wanted to hit (Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Dayton), a few AAA maps, none of which were of actual states except the one of the whole country, and my friend circling random places he wanted to go while watching TV and writing them in giant letters near the cities on the US map, but hey roadtrips are about spontaneity and so am I.

So on about four hours of sleep and with my camera MIA, my friend and I left in my packed to the brim car at about 12 noon on the 27th and headed up the 15 to Sin City. We made it about 10 miles up the road and then had already stopped because all the shaking my surfboard was doing had me worried it was going to fly off the top of my car. So we checked the straps, hopped back in and about 10 minutes later had pulled over again because the front was lifting about 6 inches off my surf pads and I was fairly sure that was not normal. So as Im telling my friend to pull the black rubber cords tighter over my board because they wont break, one of them snaps, leaving the front of the board completely untied down. Pondering what do next, I tell my friend to try and use whats left of the rubber cord to re-fasten the front down, when this random guy pulls over to the side of the road behind us. He gets out of his car, walks over to the passenger side window and says "I have something that might help you guys out" and proceeds to pull out of his car a case of bungee cords. He hands them over to my friend and tells us, not more than a few minutes ago he found them on the side of the road and picked them up. We were totally surprised by the impossibility of the whole thing. Ya know like one of those moments where you look at your whole life for a second and think maybe everything isn’t just a random set of experiences and circumstances, like maybe there is something out there and, among everything else going on, there are certain things that are meant to happen. It gives you a sense of a larger perspective and the feeling of a soft, but not so subtle pat on the back to make you feel like your going in the right direction and are right where your supposed to be.

 

Radical and Totally Gnarly, thats pretty much what describes the US Open of Surfing. I was in Michigan until the 27th and went on surfline and luckily ran into the fact that Huntington was hosting this event and set my mind to hit it up right then and man was it worth it. I got up at 6:50am Michigan time left Detroit at 9:15am got to LA at 11:15am West Coast time and went straight to Huntington. It took me like a half an hour and the help of a really kool girl to find parking of which happened to be the exact same size of my car give or take two inches literally. Got to the pier and saw some of the Pro Surfers signing autographs at a Jacks Surfboards tent and giving away free Jacks tshirts, so of course I got in line immediately. Proceeded to the next tent before the pier and got some more signatures on the same shirt (which throughout the day I continued to have surfers sign on so that shirt is now packed full of Pro Surfer Signatures most of which I didnt know before hand but now can check out, like Shane Murray, Kira Sheppard, Braden Dias, and many more) and a free hat, which was awesome luck because like a few minutes before I was in Jacks looking to buy a hat. After that I headedc straight down to the beach and there were tents from Oneil, Volcom, Aftermath Boards, PAc Sun Surf Team, free energy drinks tents which given that it was like 98 degrees was great, Pipeline Posse tent for their video coming out and signings, and of course the best part the Surfing down at the beach. Got down there sat down and watched the two of the mens heats in the round of 16 (Juan Da Silva vs. Mikael Picon and Adrian Buchan vs. Jeremy Flores, Silva and Jeremy won their heats) and saw the womens heat Stephanie Gilmore vs. Karina Petroni, Stephanie won. They were not amazing heats, the waves could have been better and some closed out before the surfers could take full advantage, and I dont know that many surfers short of the legends and some new comers, but that made it fun to learn some new faces in all honesty.

Next day I came back with my board From San Diego eager to get some waves for myself in Huntington. I got there late even though I wanted to be there by 7am, being up for 24 hours the day before wiped me out. So I got there at 3pm, I know way later, but oh well. So I missed the mens final, heard CJ Hobgood won and that unfortunately a few people I talked to said it wasnt that great to watch that day. Bummer, oh well, missed it anyway. Got a picture with Wee Man, yes Wee man from Jackass, pretty random but kool. His signature is now on my board along with Flynn Novak who surfs Pipeline so that was sweet too. Then headed out to surf and had a blast. Caught a few waves, got owned by a few, sorta walked my board in some white wash, if that counts lol. Still trying to get better at dropping in, havent quite got the hang of that yet.

 

Conclusion, Totally awesome event, met a bunch of pros I didnt know, got free gear and drinks, watched some pros, surfed at Huntington, maybe one day Ill be in a US Open lol