Surf and Soufflé Oct 15 2010

Ok so lets start this over again. Yesterday was both relaxing and a little chaotic. I started off with my regular of fibre 1 and a bagel and was ready what I thought was ready for surfing. My mind had jumped the gun though because beforehand I had to go through all of my stuff and make sure I packed everything and check the weight of my bag to make sure that my weight shedding was enough. According to the scale I am going to be within a couple pounds of the limit so fingers crossed they don’t skin me for that because that would hyper blow.

Now maybe it was the fact I was in vacation mode or simply the fact I was moving slow but noon came up far to quickly. I hear rich yell from downstairs “you ready to go”. I there on my trunks and was ready to hit the road. I could tell rich had done this before simply by the little things he packed, like a jug of hot water to warm our heads up after being in the water.

By the time we got on the road my stomach was in my throat. I am not a great swimmer, the ocean is huge, and I am small a perfect combination for someone to go surfing. Rich took me to a few of the local spots to do an extended surf check. If I am honest I wanted that to go on all day because from the look of the waves it was going to be sketchy. I considered bailing and saying “so how about go karts”, but I knew this is something I had to at least try.

That brings us to the beach. It was now 2pm on a Friday and the water was littered with little black dots of people in wetsuits. I was the only one going into the water in just trunks. This fact made me a little nervous so my heart started racing more. Just the thing you want when someone is telling you “calm down and just pop up on the board”. With a chill running through my spine I said, “Lets get in the water”. Just like that I was stumbling my way over rocks with board in had. I would have felt pretty b.a. about the trunks thing but the farmers tan kinda gave away the fact that I was a complete newb.

With the first burst of whitewash in my face I was ready to go in. But for some reason I kept getting deeper and deeper, and with that the waves kept getting larger and larger. The second that I had to start diving under waves with the board it just felt strangely right. Then I turned around and realized I was only about 500 feet out to sea… ego deflated.

Now came the part where I actually had to get my butt or in this case feet on the board. Rich made it sound simple “just pop up”. And it was… on the beach. As soon as I got into the water I hit the brainfart button. From skateboarding I am used to the side to side movement but getting up and going you have the whole front and back action as well.

Needless to say getting me to surf was not an easy birthing. I never stood up for an extended period of time (more then 2 seconds, have to set the bar high you know), but I did manage to knee a few waves and only swallow roughly 15 gallons of ocean water.

When we headed in I looked down and it looked as if a shark had attacked my leg by the amount of blood gushing from me. I guess I had popped my knee scar open on a rock when I bailed. Once I was cleaned up rich headed out to get some legit surfing in. By this point I saw another bare back in the water so there was a whopping two of us. The water really was not that bad though, infact it was warmer then the air temp. At this point something weird happened. This mom and he kid pull up beside our truck and unload. In my head I was thinking awesome she is going to teach her little 2-3 year old son how to get his feet wet in surfing. When only one full sized board came out of the car I started to question my self. Then she pulled out a mat and some toys. Then came the speech “you stay right here. If someone talks to you don’t talk back”. After then talking to the people in the other car beside us she was in the water. Odd parenting but who am I to judge.

Pretty tired rich and I needed a pick me up so some delicious Mexican food from a little place called la siesta was in order. The plates were huge, and delicious. As I ate what seemed like a full plate of beans I was thinking this is going to suck later. Luckily by the time that kicked in I was taking a nap so it was only my subconscious that was getting ambushed with farts.

Before I knew it I was plunked down watching the rangers dominate the Yankees, and the canucks suck. At the intermission we set off to have a little goodbye dinner at a really cool place near south coast plaza. Before we left I decided to turn back to the Rangers game and saw the worst thing in baseball. A team blowing up. 6 unanswered runs, 3 pitchers, and 0 outs the 8th inning was looking really good for them. At that point I knew it was time to leave.

When all 4 of us pulled up to this place I felt a little out of place in shorts and sandals because it was nice. When I look at the menu I do not know what half the stuff is so I just looked over to rich and said im trusting you. My trust was well rewarded because the Mahi Mahi was amazing. Then to top it all off he ordered from what I hear is this places piece de resistance, the molten lava soufflé. Now rich is a man who loves his food so when he said, “I only want one bite” I knew I was in for a mouthgasm. Now you may ask, “is this similar to a bikegasm”. The answer is no. It is much more enjoyable. I took one bike and it was like a unicorn started dancing in my mouth with fireworks exploding chocolate in the background. With descriptions like that I should become a food critic. All I no is that it was awesome, and a prefect way to wrap up my last full day in California for now.